I just found this old pic of me riding my GT through a very flooded Centennial Park in the 80’s!

PS: Check out my very strange handlbars.

I liked them when I saw them at Tokyo Auto Salon in January and then I went off them when I view images of them online but today I saw some at the show room and had a sit inside too. I like the new steering wheel + controls all over it. I also like the dash + centre console. All in all it very much feels like the old Jazz inside. I like it! It’s cute and I’m contemplating upgrading to one.

Cute like a Koala!

Interior.

I also dropped in to the LBS to pick up my wheels, but they were’nt ready. Grant’s got a few new 2009 Giant roadies in store though.

New TCR.

New Defy.

CF top tube.

Got to get me a roadie… soon?

My marine tank has been running smooth for almost 2 years now. I’ve very much adopted my Uncle John’s (he runs ‘Beach Aquariums’, my Dad’s old aquarium at Bondi Beach) way of keeping fish, which is to basically don’t worry about anything at all! When I was first getting into the hobby I was hanging out at fish forums day and night and I was so into keeping the salt water paramters as close as I possibly could to the ocean. Control your nitrates, or was that nitrites! Keep the calcium up, dose with a billion chemical additives… keep it perfect! In doing so I think I only stressed the fish, corals and myself out even more. Ultimately I have employed a fantastic system, it’s relatively low tech but highly automated (a sensor activates a pump which tops up evaporated water and I have a deep sand bed, protein skimmer and a sump and under the tank .

Aquaria is no longer a crazy hobby for me (bikes are at the moment as you might have guessed lol) and it’s very much just become a part of my every day life (gotta love that).

Today I treated the fishies to some new lighting (as my tubes are almost 2 years old!). I dropped in to see George and Michella from Slippery Little Suckers in Kingsford (they’re such nice people) and picked up some nice 100% actinic + 50/50 actinic tubes which are slightly more blue than what I had before.

On the bike front: I dropped in to Maroubra Cycles and left my wheels with Ash who is going to true them for me. They’ll be back to me by tomorrow (I love those guys for squeezing me in).

My aluminium bars (which are replacing my barely used carbon bars) have finally come in the mail. These Easton EA70 25.4mm Low Rise 685mm bars are advertised as 250g, WRONG! Ripped off once again. They are 276g on my scale (oooh lol).

Difference between the CF bars + the new Eastons.

Pretty bad this side.

Other side.

New bars are on.

Looking forward to the wider bars as I’ve found myself holding onto the very edge of the bars a lot since getting the shorter CF bars (they were not as wide as the original Raceface Evolve XC bars on the bike).

One thing that’s been lurking around in my forebrain is rolling resistance. I’ve always thought that the Reign “feels” slow and I’ve done a lot of research into tyres (perhaps one of, if not the most important aspect to bicycle performance?). My 2.35 Nevegals seem to be a slow rolling tyre, many people world wide, including magazine tests, conclude that the 2.35 wide tyre is a slow tyre, but apparently the 2.1 is fairly fast whilst still offering a lot of grip. I’ve been hesitant to put thinner tyres on the Reign to this date but after seeing a Yeti 575 at the Yeti stall over last weekend’s World Cup, and talking to the sponsored rider who gave the 2.1’s a thumbs up for trail riding I thought I’d at least give it a go.

I’ve put the 2.1 Nobby Nic’s off my Titanium project over to the Reign and I’ll see how they go out on the trails. The bike now weighs in at 12.6kg’s, should roll a lot faster, looking forward to testing them out.

We got back from the Canberra world cup last night (about 10.30PM). T’was a great weekend despite the rain (which was pretty shit, but what can you do about it?!).

SATURDAY: In attendance was: Jing and Shirley, Felix and Diane, Timmy, Christina and I. We all met up at the Mobil on the M5 on Saturday morning, the drive was super easy and we were in Canberra before we knew it. We checked into The Parklands, got set up and then went for a bite to eat next door at Dickon Shops (Laksa FTW!). We decided to check out the War Memorial (hey it is voted as Canberra’s no.1 attraction, with nothing else coming in 2nd spot lol). I always see something different each time I go there.

We had an awesome dinner at Pangaea in Manuka (a suburb with such a classy look and feel about the place I thought I was in Double Bay). Diane chose the restaurant which served up a storm of amazing finger foods which blew us all away. After dinner we headed to Mount Stromlo to watch the 4X finals.

Mt. Stromlo was cold, wet, dark and muddy. The course looked great, the crowd was huge and the vibe was awesome. The rain was the only let down. We watched the womens and watched Jared Graves take out the mens. We then headed back to the apartments, watched Aliens on the TV + played Nintendo DS and crashed out.

SUNDAY: The girls had been complaining about the amount of “bike talk” the day before, how ridiculous is that?! We were there to watch the world cup and there they were complaining about us talking bikes?! We tactically decided to ditch them the next day so they spent the day at the Museum and Questacon whilst we headed to Stromlo.

When we got to Stromlo it was raining hard. Too bad for Jing and Timmy who both didn’t bring any wet weather gear (lol). We walked through the pits, which were totally empty as everyone was up on the mountain watching the downhill qualifying. The first thing we came across was the bike wash bay and I spotted Sam Hill’s bike mechanic cleaning his bike. I got a good gawk in.

Can I have the bike once Mr. Hill is done with it… please?

Number 1.

We then checked out all the pitt stalls and the superstars of the circuit were out and about (since the crowd was up on the mountain). Sam Hill was chowing on a salad sandwich (surely that’s too healthy for a pre-race feed?!), Peaty was riding around with a resistance trainer attached to the back of his bike. We spotted Rennie, Dan Atherton and a few other riders. One of the team Yeti riders talked us through a 575 (my dream bike), which sold me even more on one, we ran into a few of the Farkin forum guys (who were all pretty tanked), had some food then proceeded to climb up the mountain to watch the final womens DH as well as the mens.

Stralia!

Graves’ winning bike from the night before.

Steve Peat from the UK riding around with a resistance trainers attached to his back wheel.

Go girl! These girls have got balls!

Last jump of the “triple treat”.

Halo.

We had awesome views and could get pretty damn close to the riders. Air horns, cow bells and screaming fans, the vibe was electric for every rider (whether Australian or an international) coming down the mountain. We pretty much walked down the mountain and stopped off on points of interest, the riders came down 3 minutes apart from one another which kept the whole event flowing. By the time we got down to the bottom we were in time to watch the final 5 riders on the big screen (perfect!).

The last part of the DH course was more like an XC course, there was even an uphill part! (how strange considering it a DH course). The long flat all the way to the finish line meant that pedallers could shave a lot of time off. Sam Hill was slow on the day, Rennie, who went 2nd last had the hot seat until the last rider, Greg Minmaar from South Africa smashed his time by 5 seconds.

Satisfied, wet and cold we headed back into Dickson to meet up with the girls for a hot Japanese meal before hitting the M5 on the way home.

Shimano is set to unveil a new line of products at Eurobike branded YUMEYA, Japanese for ‘Dream Workshop’. The new lightweight range will start with after-market upgrades for Shimano XTR bits, giving racers, weightweenies and those with lots of money the chance to exclusify your bike even more. Weight weenies rejoice!

Matthew Willis finally got the bike he so greatly deserves last night and I’m really super happy for the guy.

I’m pretty damn sure Matt would have wanted to take the bike into the bedroom with him, shine his bedside light on it and gaze at it lovingly before bed.

Read this post of his to feel his excitement prior to last nights delivery. So funny! And just five minutes ago I got this MSN message from a mate Sonny:

Sonny says:
saw matthew
Sonny says:
photographing his bike
Sonny says:
this morning
Sonny says:
in the alley outside my work
Sonny says:
haha

Giant (a Taiwanese company, arguably the largest bicycle manufacturer in the world) officially release their 2009 bike range online (Australian web site + Australian pricing).

As much as I’d love to join the growing bandwagon of haters I simply can’t. Their bikes are armed with great design and technology not to mention untouchable bang for your buck. No other bicycle company can release bikes with the same componentry at the same price. It’s near impossible to walk into a store and get ripped off if you’re buying a Giant bicycle, in the end of the day that means better quality bikes out there for everyone (watch out Kmart!).

The mail man just delivered this (I love the mail man lol). Shame it wasn’t earlier this morning otherwise I could have tested it (will have to wait till tomorrow I suppose!). Weight is a hefty 279g but it should be damn comfy (then again I am really starting to like the WTB Rocket V), not sure why they designed the rear like that. I can only hope it doesn’t catch on my riding shorts out on the trails.

I’ve lifted a lot of inspiration from one of the guy who rides in Seasons (the DVD). He said something along the lines of: “If I only get to ride an hour a day, it’s a good day”. So today I went for a ride out to La Perouse just to test out my new crankset and DAYM! I get what everyone’s on about with the crisp shifting. The front literally shifts as fast as the back. For the first few km’s on the road all I did was play with it. Awesome shit. Having the big chainring back is amazing on road. I’m SO much faster and to all those people saying that they feel absolutely no difference at all between crank sizes, you’ve got to be kidding!!! I am spinning a shitload faster, and in bigger gears. The sound of the Nevegals on the road is absolutely deafening at speed.