Man 'flu

In the UK wintertime everyone seemed to either fighting off, suffering from or recovering from a minor cold for most of the season. Sure, there were more serious complaints (I had microplasmic pneumonia twice) but a runny nose & a sore throat was pretty common.

Over here it seems to be different. Aussies seem to be a fairly healthy bunch so there are a lot less small complaints, but when you get ill then you get sick. I found that out during my first demo, where I told the audience that i had a slight cold *ho ho* and instead of sympathising with my sniffles they all took a step back.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hard and I think that's knocked around my immune system, so I finally came down with a bad cold / flu that's going around. I had yesterday off work and barely moved from the couch, today it seems to be a little better but I still get good & bad periods. My nose is continually running, my throat is sore, it's still affecting my breathing and I'm generally feeling a bit rubbish. Fortunately I'm stoically suffering without undue misery

Thank you for your endurance Liz.     

Scenic flight

Normally when I'm flying I prefer the aisle seat. It's not as claustrophobic as the window seat, much more comfortable than the middle seat seat and of course makes it a lot easier to get up & go to the loo as & when required. Which for those of you who know me is pretty often.

On the way back from Newcastle we flew Jetstar, who don't allow you to select seats. You check in and you get what you're given - no options.  So I ended up at the window, and since it's only an hours flight and I dozed for most of it my bladder was able to cope admirably.

I woke up as we approached the Qld /NSW border and had a cracking view of the coastline below, the dark green of the coastline rimmed with scalloped gleaming bands of yellow-white sand and then the beautiful torquoise blue of the Pacific Ocean stretching out to the horizon. It's a beautiful country to look down upon and because of flight delays we had to do a holding circuit. I was able to spot various spots where I've spent happy holidays - Yamba, Byron, Kingscliffe, Tweed Heads, Coolangatta, Surfers Paradise, Stradbroke Island, Moreton Island and Tangalooma resort. And then we turned inland giving me a view of Bribie Island, Scarborough, Redcliffe, the fantastically named Hornibrook bridge and in the distance the Glasshouse Mountains looming bulkily out of a low hanging veil of smoke. It was a shame to finally land. 

Travelling man

I've been on the road over the last few days - one day in Friday, and now it's Tuesday and I'm on my second night in Newcastle (in New South Wales, not in the north of England).

In some ways it's great to be out and about. Always good to spend time in Melbourne, and it was interesting to explore Newcastle, a surfing mecca and music focused town. Unfortunately it's not quite as relaxed as a backpacker tour. We left for melbourne at 9 am, arrived at 11.30, waited for an hour at the airport for someone else to turn up, talked business over lunch, did a 3 hr demo and then flew home. Not only did I spend more time in the air than doing my job, I also spent more time at the airport that doing my job and made it home by 10.30pm.

Newcastle isn't much better. We flew down on monday night, getting into the hotel at 10.30pm. Up at 6 am for an hours drive down to the client, kick off the presentation at 8am and finish at around 4pm. Back in the hotel at 5, then time for a wander around newcastle in the dark. Which was fun, there were some interesting pubs and some great architecture (check out the flying buttresses on the church!)

  

along with some beautiful beaches, complete with one of the best placed skateparks I've ever seen

In many ways it seems churlish to complain about my travels - I've seen more of Australia than a lot of Aussies. But it would be nice to see these places in daylight.

Tomorrow I'm up at 6 am, for an 8 am flight back to Brissie in time to spend the day with a client. All part of the job I guess...

Manland

Today was yet another beautiful Queensland winters day - wall to wall blue skies, 20 degrees and with a cool wind to keep you moving. Unfortunately I was a little sore from skating the day before and feeling tired after two 2.30am bedtimes (why can't they organise the French bike racing at a more civilised time?) so despite the perfect weather I wasn't very motivated to get out there.

After some household chores I dragged myself down to the garage to wash a couple of bikes. As I was washing one I remembered that I needed to change the brakepads, so did that and started the break-in process for the new pads by hooning down the local roads. Then as I was moving the bike back into the garage I found another long standing project that needed some work, and before I knew it the sun was going down as I happily dismantled, cleaned, repacked and polished. Manland is a very happy place to be, particularly when you have a corner of the garage well stocked with homebrew.

What was I working on? Well, as always I'll show pictures when it's done. I think that declaring your manland ideas early on gets you worrying about the views & opinions of others, and that can ruin the mindless focus and loosely formulated goals that thrive in manland. A garage or shed is in some ways a Taoist retreat where random components picked up from a variety of sources slowly evolve into a complete entity that, when finished, can take you to entirely new places. Until you're inspired to make changes once again. And naturally that isn't just restricted to bikes - it can be both a physical and a mental process.

Of course a plentiful supply of homebrew helps the journey.

Viva Cadel!

He won!

Tour De France

It's the last competitive day of the Tour De France tonight. The race stages run from 10pm to around 2am Australian time so it can be a hard call to watch the stages live, but I've managed to stay up for a couple. Last nights stage finishing up at Alpe D'Huez was particuarly fascinating and leaves the Australian rider Cadel Evans within spitting distance of becoming the first Aussie to win the Tour. That will be settled by the time trial tonight, so tonight we're settling in and trying to stay up 'til it's all over.

Allez Cadel! 

Swap meet

The theme continued the day after the Cx race with a bike swap meet in Brisbane. This was basically a mixture of a bike car boot sale and a 'bring & brag' show

The bikes that were being shown varied from the sublime - a 1901 shaft drive bike that had been lovingly restored

(the drive mechanism was still original)

to the ridiculous

and of course the highly practical - assuming you live less than 2 miles from the beach!

There were plenty of curiosities, from pursuit time trial bikes

to novel BMX tyre solutions

It probably sounds dull for a lot of people, but some of the bikes there were captivating

After the bike show we dropped by a friends place to experiment with homebrew beer and a traditional English hand pump 

We were drinking my Pendle Witches Brew. It's always scary when other people drink my beer, but gratifying when people go back for more (and more...and more).

It was a fine afternoon spent drinking beer, watching rugby and - well, drinking more beer. We missed you Marin!

Cyclocross

Like bikes? Like beer? Have you considered cyclocross?

Cyclocross started in the flatlands of Western Europe (Belgium & Holland) as a way for road racers to keep fit in the off-season. It consists of an off-road trail ridden on what look like road bikes

To make it more interesting barriers are added so that the riders have to get off and run (or even jump) with their bikes 

 along with some unridable sections that are designed to make the riders work even harder 

Traditionally the racing takes place in the muddy European winter. The creek crossing above was the closest thing that could be found in South East Queensland! I took part in a cyclocross race a couple of years ago and you basically hit your lactic threshold in the first 2 minutes of the race. You then continue at that level (or worse) until you vomit, cramp up and fall over or finish. Often all three occur at the same time. Jaman (the mud plugger in the picture above) had an average heart rate of 182 beats per minute - over a 45 minute race.

But where does the beer fit in? It's all part of the European tradition, where drunken spectators encourage the racers with heckles and cowbells. At Ipswich we were lucky enough to have a genuine Belgian bar selling European beers

along with cowbells

and they even provided a safe drinking area where we could enjoy the action without any danger of unnecessary exercise 

 

 Our man worked hard and came home 1st in his class. His prize? Well, beer of course

 and it looked to be very welcome....

One for the road

Are you spending too long in your car? Being ground down by the daily commute? Resenting the kids because of the school run? Or has one too many business trips left you ready to chuck in your job? Land Rover have the answer with a new aftermarket accessory - the travel keg.

No matter how bad the congestion, perfect beer is always within easy reach. Obviously for health and safety reasons you can't pour a beer from the drivers seat, but that's why the kids sit in the back.

But there's more! Contemplating a trans-Australian trip but scared of the thought of 3 weeks drinking Australian domestic beer? The travel keg also comes with an airlock, so you can brew your own beer as you go.  

Simply pitch your yeast when you're leaving Brisbane and a beautiful home-brewed craft beer will be ready to toast your arrival in Perth. You can't fail to enjoy your journey from the yeast coast to the best (bitter).

Perfect end to a perfect weekend

It was a great weekend all up. I went skating on Saturday morning and bumped into a few old friends out there, which lead to an improptu slides session. Bike fettling on Saturday afternoon, great riding on Sunday morning and then dozing in front of motorsports with a good homebrewed beer on Sunday afternoon as I recuperated from my early morning.  Then on Sunday night I was able to speak to my parents and my grandad over Skype before tucking into a beautiful spicey fish dish.

 Needless to say I slept very well on Sunday night.

Mt Joyce

Sunday morning saw me rising bright & early to head out to Mt Joyce. A little too bright & early in fact - this isn't a sight I see very often

 Mt Joyce is about an hours drive away, heading inland, and as the sun rose the views were of classic Australian farming land

But the desire to get out and enjoy it was held at bay by the outside temperatures - before this I didn't even know the temperature guage had a negative sign!

By the time we reached the carpark it had warmed up to 2 or 3 degrees. We rugged up and headed out on the ride, which started off down a tarmac road that ran below the dam and was freezing cold but then climbed up the ridge to the high point here. We soon warmed up.

You can see the lake in the middle-distance, with the car park next to it 

Enough sight-seeing. The trails have been built over the last 6 months and are designed to attract mountain bikers from Brisbane and other high density populations out into struggling rural areas. I hope it works - as it was the carpark was about a third full of mountain bikers when we got there at 7.30am, and full of picnicing families and dirty sweaty mountain bikers when we left.

The trails themselves have been built with an eye to the flow, that mystical feeling where the bike rides itself and you're just hanging on for the ride.

 There are a few drop-offs, plenty of bermed corners and even the odd table-top

 and even the odd wall ride

 It's not all about the gnarl though. The climb to the top is a bugger but once you're up there it's easy to find your way back down again whilst keeping all your wheels on the ground if you're as timid as me. The only problem is that once you're at the bottom you want to do it all again, and the adrenalin only wears off once you've committed yourself to the upward slog.

There's also downhill tracks and, on the other side of the spectrum, some lovely looking lakeside meanders. I can see this place being a popular weekend spot!

I 'ardly know 'er!

When I was a kid we went to North Wales for holidays. To get to the coast we used to drive through a town called Bangor (pronounced 'bang-er')

Whenever we saw it on a sign Dad would call out "Bangor? I 'ardly know 'er!". I had no idea what he was talking about but it was funny anyway.

Fast-forward 20 years and I was living with a housefull of climbers in Manchester. We'd head out to N Wales fairly regularly to go climbing in the wilds of Snowdonia, the coastal caves at Llandudno, the slabs at Tremadog or the death-on-a-stick seacliffs of Gogarth. All destinations that were reached via Bangor, and my dads joke never got old. To me at least, and as I was driving I was given some leeway by the others.

Why am I mentioning this? A new mountain bike park opened about an hour away in the Gold Coast hinterlands, and it's getting excellent reviews.
We're planning to go down early on Sunday morning for a ride, and then I might treat myself to a dip in the ocean on the way home.

So what am I up to this weekend? I'm off to Mount Joyce.

Roadie roadie suck dead toadie

I've been busy in the garage building up a new bike, mainly from bits & pieces bought from or donated by mates. I reckon I have procured bits from around a dozen people to build this up, and the only things bought new were cables, outers and bartape. The frame itself looks a bit dog-eared but is a lovely lugged-steel Abeni, made by a Sydney builder in (probably) the early 80's. I need to take some lug-porn shots for the traditionalists, although they are probably recoiling in horror at the thought of non-period componentry bolted to a classic frame.

It may look familiar. It was initially built up as a singlespeed roadie, my entrance into the skinny-wheeled world

Then it inherited some fetching pink wheels & a sense of style to become my pub fixie

Occasionally suffering the indignaties of fasion when I felt like playing 'dress-up'

Now it's back the way that nature intended and, once I get the positioning finalised, should allow me to cover some distance and explore the local highways & byways a bit more.

Until I decide to rebuild it again that is.