Monday, November 24, 2008

Karingal 4hr Postponed

Karingal 4hr is postponed for 2 weeks. Yippee! I'm finally training again, so grateful for another 2 weeks preparation. I made the most of it today with one of my regular road rides; nice hilly 185km with 2700m climbing. F*@k it was windy yesterday. It could have blown the paint clear off the side of your house. OK, slight exaggeration, but it did blow this tree over.


I was struggling to keep the bike upright over the top of Mt Mee.


I've been seeing a few koalas around of late. I'd seen a few cars around, so decided to persuade this one off the road.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

When it rains, it pours

This morning I woke at 1 to the sound of sheeting rain. The heaviest rain I've heard in a long, long time. After this morning's ride, the local stormwater culvert was still overflowing:


... and still down it comes. Actually it's music to my ears. I felt like a 10 y.o. playing in puddles on tonight's ride. I know some others are struggling with storm damage, and I hope it eases for them, but I do enjoy the rain.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Brisbane Forest Park Cruise

5am start with OMO yesterday for a cruise through Brisbane Forest Park. We headed up South Boundary Road, dropped down Auggies, up Lightline, and returned along South Boundary. There are some great hills on this ride which are very much needed for conditioning ATM. I think it was about 65km but not 100% sure since my trip computer is R.S.






OMO was making the most of his 29er wheels today with some bloody big rocks and several water crossings. Meanwhile I had to tough it out on my conventional 26" wheels -lol.

It was terrific to see some rain fall in the catchment area.

OMO has a Rohloff internally geared hub fitted to his new 29er rig. It was my first look at this hub, and I must say I was impressed. I think I can see one of these being fitted to a touring bike in the not too distant future. There are several great design features of this hub:

1. Equal gear spacings
2. No derailleur
3. The mechanism is pratically totally enclosed
4. Able to do a full gear dump at once
5. Able to change gears whilst stationary

I believe it's about 300g heavier than a conventional XTR drive train (TBC). It's not cheap, but given my regular use and abuse of drive-trains, I could make my money back in quick time.


Sexy modelling legs there OMO;-/