The Madison

Track went pretty good last night. I won everything except one sprint but that was kinda not my fault because they forgot to blow the whistle and although I chased down the dude who broke-away, I just sucked his wheel and didn’t attempt a crack at him at the line. Oh well. NBD.

A, B and C all went together for an Italian Pursuit at the end of the night which was awesome fun.

Here’s a video of the Madison which looks fucking crazy! I was telling the guys last night how freaky it would be to grab someone while riding and then fling them ahead. It’s bad enough when I get all wobbly every time I pass a courier friend in the city and need to do a high five.

Good feeling of what the track feels like in this film too.

Lego, and what it means to me

When I was in my late 20s, one Saturday I went to Myer at Chermside and bought and paid for my very first Lego set with my own money. It was the Millennium Falcon. At the cash register I was so embarrassed I pretended I was buying it as a present for a kid. The person behind the counter only half-believed me.

And so, as I brought the massive box home, I realised it was the very first Lego I had touched since I was 11. I spent the next few days building the fuck out of that bad-boy and just loving every second.

See up until that point, all the Lego I had owned had been given to me, usually as a Christmas or birthday surprise. Only once did I get to choose a lego set and it was the very last set I obtained in that period. And It was bought for me by my godmother. I am not a religious person – but – god, fucking, bless her. I was so happy I could have been overdosing on ecstacy. Not that I know what extacsy feels like – but I think I can half imagine.

So once upon a time – my sheer, brutal-love affair with lego started. Try as I might, I cannot remember my first lego set. It was just there – a lovable constant in my upbringing.

I must have adored those early blocks and miscellaneous bits, but only with the “love” a 4 or 5 year old can dismissively muster. So I would imagine those first lego bits would be prone to being lost – consumed by a sinister vacuum cleaner, buried somehow in the garden or just suddenly missing in the constant moving I experienced as a child.

It now occurs to me that this space ship I had constructed a day or so later after the “mobile rocket transport” outlined below. You can see how the satellite dish is exactly the same…

But then on Christmas Day 1983 I had an epiphany. It was at my Nanna’s house in Ipswich and my mum was visiting from Sydney (which was a big deal) and I was forced to open the smallest presents first. My parents seemed to understand the value of suspense.

See in those days the smallest presents were invariably the shitiest. Nowadays with the iPhones and the Garmins and other super-electronics stuff, the smallest gift just might be the best.

But sometimes my parents would just wrap up a set of batteries. And you would rip this present open and just go – “Wha? Are you guys on drugs?” And then suddenly your brain would start to work again and when they excitedly thrust another present in your hands you would realise something very special was about to be unveiled.

But getting back to Christmas 1983. So eventually I got through all the little forgettable or practical stuff – and soon enough I was unwrapping this box that shuffled and rumbled inside with the musical frequency I knew instinctively as “a shit load of lego”. Even before I opened the wrapping I could feel my bladder was a tiny bit compromised. This would be my very first major Lego set. And through the magic of the time-machine of the internet – below is the cover of the box. Something until today I had not seen in decades.

And when I gazed upon this box I saw it was from the newly established “Space” genre. And it was called “Mobile Rocket Transport” and I just shook like I had full-body Parkinson’s – with a happiness I will never experience again.

Holy moly. First of all the box was twice my width and almost half my height. And then it took me most of Christmas Day to assemble, a simply magical experience.

So Lego’s new “SPACE” theme became my ONLY theme. It was now my world. I would not accept any other bricks. Had someone bought me a big city set I would have first told them how disappointed I was, then cannibalized the set for anything useful to me building SPACE stuff. Then I would have chucked the rest of the bricks in the face of the person who had given me that trash in the first place. UGH!

A relative then gave me two plastic trays (avec handles) to stow my blossoming lego collection. I can remember digging through those trays looking for pieces I needed. The smallest pieces were always the most important. The one bit lights for instance.

This was the set my Godmother —  Kim — bought me. I cannot tell her much it meant to me at the time. Horribly awesome, but a bit horribly guilty that she had bought me the biggest gift I had ever received.  

When my dad was briefly and quite suddenly hospitalised I was literally dragged out of school and shoved on a train ultimately to be temporarily re-located to the country town of Wagga Wagga in NSW where my grandparents (both born and bred in Scotland/England) lived. It took 2 days to get there and the train actually caught fire on the way! (Only a little bit but it was so freakishly dramatic to an 8 year old!)

Once we got there it was established that my grandad was working at the airforce base as a mechanic. In the seconds I had before the trip I remember insisting I take the entirety of my lego collection with me. The train ride was so imminent no one had the strength to argue. So probably sans quite a bit of important clothing and other essentials we were suddenly on a train heading south.

And at the time it seemed such an adventure – but it soon became less of a Lego adventure, but more of a Dr Who one. See I was travelling back in time. I was now under the archaic rules of my grandmother. Indeed my grandad was not much better. Although he worked in the airforce and I wished so fucking hard he would tell me about it, he was effectively a zombie to me. The only time he was animated was when he chastised me for leaving an inner door open – something that would excise the demon known as “the draft”.

My grandmother was even more intense. She is a Baptist and seems to be forever atoning for very minor discretions (by today’s standards) as a youngster. At the time I was used to it. It seemed to be cool that she left a glass of milk next to my bed after I fell asleep just in case if perhaps I woke up in the dead of night and suddenly needed lactose I could drink it’s milky goodness…and it was a tiny bit endearing that she washed my hair in the bathroom sink, but everything else was just evil. So much religion, no laughs, and an inherent cynicism about the world and the people in it – unless they went to Church.

But thankfully I had my little plastic bricks and the imagination to transform them into a world I could escape to.

That time in Wagga was actually quite amazing. I was suddenly top of the class. I felt like a total braniac and thus I got an incredible amount of respect around the school-yard. No apparent interest from girls, which I was completely used to – but at least I was an intellectual celebrity which was inspiring I guess.

For a show-and-tell school spectacle, I built the most ambitious Lego space ship I had ever attempted. I used every brick I owned. It was so ridiculously long and fragile I needed my sister to help me carry it to school. I remember it being quite a scene as we waddled through the school gates — the ship waddling quite a bit more than us. I didn’t win any prizes, but I didn’t care. I had made the biggest lego ship ever. Exponentially so.

At least in Wagga.

The end of lego came quite suddenly again – almost as suddenly as that move to Wagga. Admittedly by the time I was 11 I had moved on a bit and Lego was now a bit “kids stuff”. My Grandma either sensed this or just decided this. Now I think about it – it was the latter.

After all she was that crazy-brutal Grandma from Wagga who was now back in my home-town of Ipswich and thus her Death-Star-tractor-beam of influence was even more intense. She, who had been raised during the war… she who had lived through bombs raining down and living (perhaps) perpetually on cardboard and rations not exactly unlike cardboard had just decided I needed to donate my totally indulgent Lego bricky magic to another kid. A less fortunate soul would now perhaps enjoy this intensely personal stuff. She was probably working through some charity she helped out with through her Church. Confronted with that logic, confronted with her history, her brutal soberness and her omnipresent seriousness, I had not choice but to agree it was the right thing to do – even though quite a bit of my heart thought maybe I would miss it one day. Maybe even perhaps the day after tomorrow.

But then it was gone.

And now, despite being a bit embarrassed at first, I am embracing it all again. And it is fucking awesome. Even the “intellectual” bricks of the “Architecture” series. Refreshing. Just a few weeks ago I saw a rather normal-looking-dude in his 20s buying a pretty awesome Star Wars set. Ans so now I have now come full circle. Totally.

That’s me as a baby in the frame in the background. Oh the irony.

Lego’s “Falling Water”

Weekend Photos

A tiny bit of Brisbane Cycle Chic

The cat had been ignoring the new deck furniture, so I put one of my jackets down in the hope she would embrace it. And I got a pretty awesome result!

On Friday night we tried out Coles home delivery. It was just a test and it arrives in a van like this. I am not quite convinced, al that plastic etc but once we work out if it is good for us, not horribly indulgent and wasteful… well maybe we will continue.

And thus the first super-cold night of the year we tried out a fire – avec marshmallows. Hugh had done an episode of his awsm TV show featuring them just the night before.

But in doing all this, I think we made a huge mistake making a fire. Even though we used wood from a tree I was forced to cut down a year ago but saved for this very purpose – and it was pretty cool for an hour or so – it really stunk up the house with smokey bullshit. Plus I am gradually understanding that the toxins produced by wood fires are pretty heinous.

Today I really do feel like I have smoked a dozen packets of cigarettes while at the same time being stuck for hours in an elevator with another bunch of douchecanoes equally smoking as many cigarettes as they can immolate in the possible timeframe. A tiny bit EVIL>

The marshmallows tasted pretty good but…

The cat seemed intrigued.

Sunday we had a coffee and a light lunch at cafe GOMA. Nice view.

Then I had a mysterious meeting at State Library – which I might tell you about a bit later.

Next was GoldSprint roller-racing at Cartel Bar on Caxton Street in Petrie Terrace. This is Scott with his magic tape measure so he could ensure his saddle on the roller-bike was at exactly the same height as his normal ride. So, so pro.

Marty and Erik sharing a special moment before their race. I raced next but was hoping to actually lose cause I needed to get to a dinner with Dee’s parents at Il Postino a big deal up the road very soon after. But then I accidentally won.

The cute sunset over Caxton Street

Until this afternoon I didn’t realise Jesse Eisenberg was part of the fixie scene in Brisbane. That’s Julian on the right who can SPIN like a fucking GRAVITRON on DRUGS. (Like speed kinda drugs).

The only female participants of the evening managed a DEAD TIE. It was pretty amazing.

This is Rupert just as gobsmacked as me as to what had just occurred and in the background is the results on the screen. But in the advent of a dead heat – the winner is awarded to the person who actually clocked the highest speed.

This is Scotty measuring his shit. LOL

Bjorn in the centre who, apart from help by Erik and Marty, made all this shit REAL. Kudos.

And finally – at Il Postino. The food was pretty frkn amazing.

Something is happening soon

Next week I am doing another something that can only be described as lightyears outside my comfort zone. And many of you just might be glad to hear it is totally unrelated to bikes.

It will happen on Thursday evening and I won’t say much more until after – just in case it is a total disaster.

I have been thoroughly distracted since I realised it was imminent and have spent hours and hours alone, literally talking to myself, going through it all. Practicing, rehearsing. So it is a gig, just not the kinda “gig” I am used to.

And crucially it is a very public event but I am not going to advertise it to everyone. Instead I have invited just a few of my friends who seem to be hardy enough to tolerate the spectacle, the tragedy that will probably ensue. It will be brutal. It will make them wince and squirm in their chairs.

Soon we will all be going through Play School’s arched window — the best window. The window with the coolest stories behind.

Track Racing

Last night, for the first time ever, I rode my bike in a “race” – like a race I needed a proper license for.

So I say “raced”, but it was just a bunch of track races at chandler velodrome in “C” Grade, the very lowest, and C grade is effectively just about learning the skills and then demonstrating you have those skills so you can graduate to B or A.

I’d ridden at Chandler a few times before.

The first time was pretty darn scary. The steepness of the walls at either end seemed so glassy and oblique they would instantly send you sliding the moment you hit them.

I remember the first time I had the courage to venture up them. I rolled around the very bottom where it was flat for a bit, just mentally preparing and then I said to myself, “It’s now or never,” and started smashing up as much speed as I could just swinging up that metre into the track and then that corner was instantly upon me and suddenly I was heading around the bank at some crazy angle and thinking it was a miracle I was still able to ride. Soon that feeling at speed as your world just shifted to a ridiculous tangent while your feet spun away became natural and gradually you understood that new horizon.

But I’ll admit – it still freaked the shit out of me. As part of my induction, I was taken around the tops of those big walls at either end at barely above walking pace just to show me the bike wouldn’t slip out. It was fucking petrifying, but after a few laps it became the perfect tool to rewire my brain into not being afraid of those banks anymore.

Tom riding in B grade

Other lessons included understanding the sprinters line and how you look where you want to go (change lines) and to be in tune to what other riders are doing or going to do.

And the last lesson was about how to take turns at the front. The peleton, actually…do you call it a peleton in track cycling? Anyway, at the beginning of a scratch race, the riders will work together in a train and the front rider will peel off after their turn then rejoin the pack at the end.

So that done it came time for me to race. There were only 6 of us, including two kids. I was a bit scared — and not just because all the A and B grades were watching. And another thing I was just getting used to was pushing off from the fence with both shoes clipped in and a bunch of other wobbly riders around. Trickier than you think to a dweeb like me.

The first race went ok. I think it was 8 laps. I tried really hard to stay as close to the bike wheel in front, which apparently is good racing etiquette. I took my turns at the front and kept the pace even and especially even when I peeled off up the bank so I could rejoin the back as smoothly as possible. I looked around every time I was going to do something. (It almost felt like I was doing my driving license test all over again.)

When the last lap bell went I found myself at the very front so I just charged at about 90% effort and for the final 50 metres I spun pretty close to my hardest. And as I crossed the finish line I seemed quite alone and the officials didn’t show any body language like the race was over so I thought, “Shit, maybe that bell meant two laps?” So I kept sprinting and went around again as fast as I could thinking that whoever was behind me would now be able to charge me down as I’d broken out too early.

But then I realised that I had just done an extra lap for no reason. I must have looked like a total dick.

While B and A grade raced I had a rest.

Scotty ripping shit up as usual – damn good rider!

The next C grade race was a 10 lap race with an intermediate sprint dictated by a whistle at a random lap. Again I found myself at the front when the whistle was blown but this time I just waited for someone else to make a move – just to make things more interesting. So Dayne attacked not too long into the straight and as I was in the sprinter’s lane he kept outside the black line.

I surged and managed to hold him off. The pack regrouped and then the final sprint Dayne attacked on my outside again but this time got a length or so ahead of me so I thought that to overtake him I had to come around him so that’s what I did. Later I realised I could have just stayed in the sprinter’s lane and saved myself the extra metres I had to travel to get around. I just beat him at the line and as I slowed I was really sucking in air. Inside a tiny bit of vomit seemed to want to form in my throat, but that feeling eventually eased.

Sprinting at 100% towards that line I just got caught up in the moment and it was only later I realised how long I had been in the red-zone. I guess that’s racing right?

My mate Craig, who had just recently broken back coming off his bike, came along to watch and he took this photo of me in the last race.

The last race was just three of us and I just rode around and let someone else win. Is that poor form? I felt a bit guilty winning all the time.

Anyway! It was good. Really good! I need a bit more practice before B grade, which looks far, far more intense. Stay tuned.

The weekend and goodbye Trek 1.7

Saturday afternoon Dee sent me to the Butcher to get a “roast”. Being a reformed vegetarian, I am not very good at buying meat so I went up to the counter and said, “Um…can I get a ‘roast’ please?” And he was like, “What kinda ‘roast’?” This threw me and he pointed over to a bunch of big fat chunks of flesh and I pointed at the smallest and said, “That one please.”

At home we weighed this bad-boy and it was over 1.6kg. Luckily I am not fussy with food and have literally had roast beef with every single meal (except sushi for lunch today) since. No complaints.

Dee then made apple crumble which was amazing. Dee will do a guest blog here one day and show you all her skills! YES!

Just before we had bucket-washed Dee’s car for the first time ever – which turned out to be a bit of a silly idea on such a steep glassy-slippery-pebble-shit-driveway. I only slipped about 3 times but managed to stay upright.

While Dee was cooking I decided to clean my old Trek road bike (which I have had since December 2007) cause I am selling it to Tim. The Trek and me have been through some amazing adventures. I would imagine it would be 30,000kms or more. -It suffered with me on all that pain I put myself through to build up my bike skills. My first Coot-tha, my first time I had ridden over 70km/hr on a bike, my first group rides, my first 100kms, my first 100 miles, my first 3 day 520km+ ride…etc. It is going to a good home.

You can see by the saddle how much punishment I gave it.

This is a photo of the front wheel and the carbon forks around it. See those paint chips? This damage occurred about 5 days after I bought the bike. I was coming down Bowen Bridge Road at about 60km/hr and the shitty orange reflectors not-properly-attached-to-the-wheels came loose and then exploded in a spectacular and fucking frightening orange-shattering-glory. I thought I was toast, but the bike kept rolling  in a straight line and I stopped a few hundred metres later and saw all the paint chips to the carbon forks. I had heard horror stories about how fragile carbon was so I went to a bike mechanic and asked their opinion. Luckily he said it was just superficial. Even though he looked about 15 I was reassured.

New bike and the old. (plus the cat being so nosey)

I love this rug. It was super cheap (about a third of the price of a boutique option) and came from a very ordinary store in Rocklea. But I love it’s simplicity, and I love how the cat just blends into it.

On Sunday, after riding up Mt Gravatt for the first time and trying to take a picture of the quite awesome view (but realising the camera was sans a memory card) I slunked home and did the gardening. We inherited this hand-mower from the previous owners and it is tough work, but does the job! It is very loud, but maybe not as loud as a conventional mower. I guess it would sound pretty annoying to neighbours as the noise is not constant – just organic. It makes this surging whizz (every time I rip into the lawn) and then this scream as it spins down). And it probably takes about twice, maybe three times, as long as a petrol-powered machine.

So the cat was watching me do my shit. 

Then she just showed off her skills.

Then she smashed about 6m up this tree. I only realised she was up there when I head the Indian Minor birds get narky.

Eventually she came down and it wasn’t dignified, she went backwards most of the time, then dropped seemingly totally-out-of-control for a few feet only to somehow find a scratch-hold at the last moment to arrest her fall. Then she ambled down the next few metres – probably purring – like this was all normal. No biggie. Obviously her hind leg is pretty much cured.

Ever since we bought this house I have wanted to get chooks. I even started, but didn’t finish, this chook-pen. SOON!

This is Tim carrying out my old bike. As I said before – it’s going to a great home. Tim actually rode this bike in the early days when we rode together – so it’s not like he doesn’t understand it. Tim also got car-doored recently which makes me so freaking mad. I almost got doored myself twice on Sunday. GRRR! Happy riding Timmmay!

Hair

Just recently I have let my hair grow out a bit. See about 4 months ago I gave myself a rather severe hair cut, just for something different, but no one seemed to appreciate it.

CUTTING MY OWN HAIR

In case you didn’t know this about me, I cut my own hair. I grab a blunt pair of ordinary kitchen-drawer scissors, stand in front of the mirror and excise big chunks of my ginger-mane. It is messy and sometimes I have to vacuum the bathroom afterwards, but this is what I do. No big deal right? Wrong.

When people discover this fact, it seems to absolutely freak them out, and then they start looking a little too closely at my hair (which makes me equally as uneasy) and saying stuff like, “Oh yeah, it’s a little uneven at the back…” And until the conversation changes topics, they look at me like I had just told them I like to sleep rough occasionally.

Yet no one has ever noticed of their own volition. I might get the occasional post-haircut jibe like “Stefan?*” or “Nice haircut” – like they are saying I have been cut by clippers exclusively and have virtually no hair left – but it’s not like anyone has any idea I cut my own hair.

It’s not such a weird story about how I got to this place either.

HOW I GOT HERE

When I was growing up, haircuts were like Christmas. Because we were so poor haircuts were an absolute luxury. If I was lucky, I would get maybe 3 haircuts a year. And the feeling I got going to school the next day looking all neat and civilised and DIFFERENT was amazing. I remember in year 6 I had such confidence after a haircut I promptly asked out the girl I had the biggest crush on – Megan – thinking my new look would be all the difference. She gave me an emphatic “No!”

As you can see – at 8 – I wouldn’t have looked out of place in a hair-metal band

But as I grew up haircuts became a chore. All that chit-chat, all that looking at myself in the mirror and let’s face it – it costs a fortune and takes up so much time.

So I somehow convinced a girlfriend to cut my hair and it went fine. I could still show my mug in public and know one was any wiser. Indeed it wasn’t the first time I had had home-haircuts. In primary school a few of my dad’s girlfriends had cut my hair. Once this woman called Paula gave me a haircut, and I must have been 10, and she had this low-cut top and as she bent over to clip I could see just a bit too much of her jubblies and I was so, so embarrassed I kept my eyes closed. Paula asked me if it was cause I was getting hair in my eyes and I gleefully agreed – happy I didn’t have to explain the real reason.

So then I split up with that girlfriend and my next GF steadfastly refused to cut my hair. Even despite me saying, “I don’t care if you stuff it up!” she was almost shaking at the thought of cutting someone’s hair and getting it wrong.

And thus I was forced to visit a barber for the first time in 2 years and it was just an appalling experience. I was then determined to try it for myself. And it wasn’t that hard. You just took roughly the same amount of hair from all directions, then just clipped where stuff needed to be evened out and complimented the way you parted your hair. Easy.

And the more I did it, the better I got. I think it has been 12 years since I have been to a professional hairdresser. The only thing I miss is getting your hair washed by someone else. But mostly I think this was cause I had a crush on the woman who used to do this at Hair Junction.

BIKE HAIR

Bike riding is no good for hair. And that is why pro-cyclists have very short haircuts. And the very, very few who have longer hair, get laughed at. It just looks stupid, all that stuff at the back, trailing out there under your helmet.

Although I am no where near a PRO-CYCLIST, I do understand the reasoning.

WATER IN MY EAR

So. The impetus for today’s blog was actually cause I have some fluid stuck in my left ear. It’s been that way for two days and it is starting to chip away at my soul.

I have tried lying upside down and banging the other side of my head. I have tried sticking ear bugs a little too deep into my ear-canal. No luck.

The reason I have water in my ear canal is cause my hair is that bit long enough so that it congregates around my ear and when I sweat (and I sweat quite a lot) my hair soaks up that fluid and when I get home and take off my helmet and sweatband and rough up my hair, the clump of hair around my ears just spills out that fluid and it has no where else to go but seeping down into the dark, remoteness of the tubes in my ear.

This is not the first time this has happened. And it sucks. It really does.

The other thing I hate about having longer hair and bike riding is that when your head is encased in a helmet, most of your hair is pretty much locked in – flattened – but the strands at the very back are free and get an effective PERM. It’s not very flattering when you take your helmet off and you look like Michael Bolton.

Helmets suck for hair.

* In the 80s Stefan had ads where a person would show up to work or something and the other person would see their new haircut and say, “Stefan?” and they would reply, “Yes…Stefan.” So at school if you got a haircut kids would do the same thing, even if there was literally no chance you got your cut at a Stefan salon.

Last week or so in photos

In chronological order…

I went to Track last Tuesday at Chandler just to learn a bit in lieu of actually trying it one day – hopefully next week. It started to make a lot more sense I am happy to say.

This is Red – Shirts’ brother.

The irrepressible might of Scott ready to rip shit up

Thursday was Norway’s national day. I was in the city getting my lunch and I saw a family in bunad and I was instantly reminded that I was in Norway roughly this time last year and so I actually stopped them and asked them if there was an event happening and they said they were on their way to a parade. So I got my lunch and I walked over just in time.

Norwegians are just incredibly stunning people!

Last night we were having dinner at Chris and Megs’ place over in Paddington. So I took a few photos as I walked over. Our new cafe looks almost ready to open.

The strangler fig on Haig Road

This house has flamingoes just like us!

Met Dee at the Paddo.

At AP Design they have boutique milk crates made from wood! 

This is Sarah’s scar. She fell on a wine glass and almost bled to death. She gets to take her “claw” off today, but it’s still another year or so before she might get full use of her hand back.

Winston! I think he’s 7 or 8 months old…

Laura, Pete, Dee, Chris, Meg and Sarah.

These art deco light fittings everywhere in Queensland.

Was a bit drunkenly excited on the way home taking photos of random stuff…

New music

THE DEVIL WHALE

This band has some great rocking pop tunes. Listen to “Golden” or “Standing Stones” first. They are from Salt Lake City. Hopefully they are not Mormons. Anyway – at least listen to the all-of-a-sudden-guitar-rock-out-shred at the end of “Golden” and try and tell me it doesn’t get you on your feet. Just try!

http://thedevilwhale.bandcamp.com/

SONNY AND THE SUNSETS — “Pretend You Love Me”

Fuck this is a good song. I love the bass. I fucking LOVE it! I think that’s the point, but there’s a bit towards the end, just when the chorus is going nuts – 4:03 for anyone who wants to look it up – where the bass is doing these quadruplits. OMG! For such a laid-back song – this bad-boy can ROCK! And I can sing along too. Magic.

http://soundcloud.com/polyvinyl-records/pretend-you-love-me/

KING TUFF “Keep On Movin'”

There’s not enough fade-outs in rock these days. And there’s not enough good old fashioned straight-forward, having-a-good-time rock n roll either. And danceable rock too.

So if you like that shit – this song ticks all those boxes plus more. “I let my guitar drool – that’s how we stay so cool.” And the third verse – inspired!

It’s almost like a more accessible Hunx and his Punx — is it wrong to think that way?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3cfTERoPAI

THE GUPPIES — “Never liked Mondays”

I only just accidentally heard this song, but it sounded cool. It’s a few year’s old, it’s a bit “young”, a bit Triple J, but… there’s not too much wrong with that…right? And those who know me know I am a bit silly about my love of middle-8 bridges. So the “bridge” in this song is almost right at the end. Refreshing.

http://soundcloud.com/happyend_ings/the-guppies-never-liked

RETRO TUNE

AMBULANCE LTD — “Primitive (The Way That I Treat You)

This is one of my most, most, most favourite songs. It has such a great and tricky riff, which defines such a groove, and underneath are so many hooks, a tiny piano trickling away, and it builds up a few times towards teasing you with a half chorus and a lead break, then the next build reveals the final fucking amazing full chorus, and it just smacks you in the head over and over, then gradually let’s you down. So gently. Ever so gently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biSwRLbhp4g&feature=fvst

What happened to this band? Only two releases. Both amazingly rich and quality. Maybe it was their shit name. I dunno.

Toowoomba Bike Tour – DAY TWO

One of the most intensely gobsmacking realisations when you do big rides – is the fact that there’s a point where everything previous to that moment seems like an eternity before. Indeed the beginning of the ride feels like it should be documented in black and white — it was THAT long ago. And on day two of a journey like this, thinking as hard as you could to remember that moment just over 24 hours ago at the Regatta where it all started — it seemed like a whole other lifetime.

So much stuff happens – so much detail — when you are out in the horrible publicity and exposure of being on a bike on THE ROAD. And this kind of riding means your brain is working just as hard as your legs.

I got a decent amount of sleep compared to the night before, but woke up quite hungry. I had an apricot bar and got all prepped and went down to meet the crew in the carpark so Dee could load up the car and drive all our overnight gear back to Brisbane. I had been thinking we would all have breakfast together, but I’d got it all mixed up and everyone had already had a big breakfast so I was like, “Shit!” So I jumped on the bike and rode a few blocks across town to the McDonalds and grabbed a McMuffin and a hash brown and shoved them down.

It was chilly out on the road north, but nothing like we had imagined. We left Dan behind as he had family stuff so that meant there were 6 of us. There was more climbing to get out of Toowoomba and after a piece-of-shit hill at 25kms I got dropped but I could see everyone ahead as the road was dead straight and lined with massive trees. Although the world seemed flat my Garmin told me I was still going up.

At 31kms we stopped at a village called Hampton and at a little local information hut the nice old lady on duty gave us water. I asked her about the road to Esk and she said, “Oh – it’s a very winding road,” like she thought it was almost impassable to bikes, “And there’s lots of motorbikes!” She also said there was a detour because the road was closed at Ravensbourne National Park. I think she also mentioned a landslide had taken the road out but I immediately forgot that when I asked if the detour was sealed and how much extra road we needed to take. She said the detour road was narrow, but sealed and only added another kilometre or so.

“No biggie,” I thought.

Scotty shoving newspaper down his jersey to keep him warm on the descent. So pro!

It was straight down from here and at the bottom I managed to successfully eat a gel while riding. The last time I attempted this I failed and the gel got all over my hands, then all over the handlebars and made everything sticky and generally – shit.

And then we came upon the detour and looking left the road just went stupidly up. “Oh great,” I thought. And Shirts was like – let’s just take the road. If we get a bit of gravel – big deal. Right? Scott and Ryan had by now decided to hit the hill and I turned into it and then went, “Fuck this,” and shouted up, “Meet you where it joins up”.

I agreed with Shirts. The “road closed” sign didn’t look that convincing when it had a “local traffic only” sign attached to it as well. It was worth the risk. If we had to turn back it was only a kilometre or so wasted. Then we looked back and Scott and Ryan had changed their mind and were following us. But then there was another “ROAD CLOSED” sign which looked far more serious – especially when the road beyond was covered in dirt. “Oh yeah. I remember the old lady saying something about a landslide now.”

We paused wondering what to do looking down the road. I decided to have a look and rolled very carefully down. What bitumen was left was covered in rocks and sticks and mud. After maybe 600m the road just ended. Like, the road was literally missing. Cut in half by a flood I imagined.

“Shit.” From what I could see it looked like the only way to cross would involve getting our feet wet. I dropped the bike and walked down some more to investigate and to my surprise I realised there was a way across. I walked back to the bike and the crew were just rolling in and relayed the news. But we couldn’t even see where the road picked up again on the other side. There was this bunch of fallen trees and I just guessed that was where the road was.

So we picked up our bikes and climbed over the deep red rutted soil. There was just a few patches of concrete left where the bridge had once been. On the other side, up the hill and past the fallen trees we were relieved to see that the road began again and looked fine.

I grabbed a stick and cleaned all the dirt out of my cleats. Once upon a time I had walked through mud and not cleaned my cleats after and while I had rode the mud had dried and when I finally stopped I found myself stuck to the bike. Not a very pleasant experience.

The next bit of road was through beautiful Endor-like forest and there was plenty of down which was fun. It was still about 15 or 20ks to Esk and I was about to stop everyone for a quick break when this “6%” down sign appeared and I was like, “Roll on!”

What followed was THE BEST DESCENT EVER! It just went on and on and the bends were easily negotiable and I hardly touched the brakes. And just when it seemed it was about over, a sign saying “2km more of winding roads” appeared and I thought, “YES!”

Mashing into Esk we were pushed even faster by a serious tail-wind. We were going so fast Shirts, who had stopped for a nature break, couldn’t catch up to us.

After all the shit quality food we had had the day before I guided the crew towards somewhere a little more sophisticated for lunch. And the food was great. By the time we left it was about 12:30 and the average speed was over 32km/hr.

The next 30kms was where things got a bit tougher. A few of us started to struggle or tone it down keeping something left for the end. Eventually Ian developed a painful knee problem and we had to slow everything down significantly so he could keep going. At Wivenhoe Dam picnic ground he didn’t think he could go on. So Ian and I started asking people for a lift back to Ipswich but no one could help or was willing to.

Meanwhile Scott and Shirts had tyre/tube issues which they set about fixing. Eventually Ian gave up and decided to test his knee by riding around the carpark. He decided it was feeling a little better so I sent him ahead to Fernvale at his own pace. We were now doing calculations in our head about how far we needed to go and how much light we had left.

The night before there was a lot of talk about getting the train from Ipswich. But now we all agreed we were feeling OK enough to give it a go. After all the route more or less followed the trainline. And It looked like we just had enough light, but we’d have to go reasonably hard.

We caught up to Ian at Fernvale, 27km from Ipswich. After a quick round of goodies from the pie shop we left Ian who was trying to get a cab from Ipswich. I said I’d ring him from Ipswich and see how he was managing. And then we smashed on. I was a little bit worried about this section cause I had no happy memories of it the last time I went through this section. But we nailed it, although by the end Ryan looked absolutely shattered. I have seen him that bad only once before. I said to him, “Just give it a go to Booval – 3 stops from Ipswich and see how you feel.”

He agreed and we gently covered those 4 or so ks via a backway that avoided some shitty sections of Brisbane Road and that hill near Ipswich Girls Grammar. Just before that I rang Ian who was riding back to Ipswich and said he was only about 10kms away. I guess that was the only way out.

Ryan signalled that he wanted to keep going and we hooked up with the main road. Just before Scott had accidentally blasted through a stop sign. I told him it was probably the safest stop sign to run cause it was a 4-way stop sign intersection – something I’ve only ever seen in Ipswich.

We had a vicious tailwind at some points which could push us up into the 40s without much effort. Another train-station “out” was passed at Redbank and another at Gailes. After that one was safely behind us I knew we would all make it home.

At Moggill Road the Garmin said our average was 31.5km/hr and we had climbed 1700metres. By the end of the day we would have climbed just as much as the day before. Madness!

By the time I got home, bizarrely, my big toe was the part of me in the most pain. I think it was just squashed into my shoe for too long and Dee had to take my shoes off not for the first time in her life.

Well done everyone. Good times.

 

Scott grabbed the camera and took this shot of me – thanks dude!