Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

FYI the frame is a 2011 Lynskey Helix OS & the fork in an EDGE 2.0, the rest of the gear is junk I had laying around :-)

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

See the full gallery on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

New set of wheels for the roadie. Stans Alpha 340 rims
Dura-ace 7900 hubs
DT rev & comp spokes
1395g

See the full gallery on Posterous

Thanks to Stu @ www.definitivecycles.com.au for the build.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

A quick update to say I'm still alive.

Training for the World24 in October is consuming most of my leisure time, it's fun & wouldn't have it any other way, but it keeps me busy.

So I've done a summary of what has been happening for me lately, read on if you desire.

See the full gallery on Posterous

(sorry if you clicked through thinking it was only a quick update, I lied, sorry :-) )

World 24hr update

At the start of the year my goal was to race singlespeed (SS) in the World24, a few things & thoughts have cropped up that have made me reevaluate. The main reason is I'mreally happy with how training is going & I want to pit myself against the best in the world on a level playing field. Racing with gears I'll be able to see where I stand rather than getting to the end on an SS & wondering how I would have compared with gears. Time to man up & get serious.

Race updates

Since last post I've done a bunch of events, here are the highlights.

• JetBlack 24hr Sydney - This was the qualifier for the World24. I came, I rode, I won the SS class and qualified for the worlds (even for the elite category), job done. It rained pretty much non stop the whole time. The track deteriorated so much the organisers had to halt the race at the 8hr mark, just when I was getting my groove on. The race was restarted at 8am the next day for a 4hr dash to finish. I was kept honest by Dave in 2nd, thankfully my support crew (hi Dad) was watching the wrong rider & was giving me positive updates in the last few hours. In the end I won by about 4 minutes I think. Phew. 
  Rocky Trail Entertainment put together a video after the event.
• Mebbin MTN marathon - not a highlight really, more of a bad dream. Muddy & pointless, I pulled out after 20 or so km which was about half way through. Moving on.

• Kellevie 24hr Tasmania - A mate & I (hi Alan) travelled down to Tassie to race this one. Great course and good fun, but unfortunately neither Alan or I performed as we expected. Props to Nic & Russell who kept the Queensland spirit alive & put in a good showing, especially Nic who pushed on & claimed a damn fine result (which escapes me right now). In commiseration we made a good night of it in Hobart the following night & saw all the (pub) sights we could.

• Dirtfest 50km XC (incorporating the inaugural Qld Singlespeed Championship) - I really wanted to put in a good showing for this 5 lap race to get my name up on the SS honour role.  I went out hard & nearly paid a high price, I held on and bagged 3rd place in SS & somewhere in the top 10 overall. More importantly I scored the coveted RotW at the Jaman Files, which nearly knocked the Ti belt buckle off my overall top accolade in cycling.
• Noosa OOO 12hr Mountain Bike Challenge - 1 week after 3rd place in the Qld SS Champs it was time to defend my bronze title up Pomona way. The 000 challenge is a charity event put on by the Qld Police in aid of sick kids (that's proper sick, not like fully sik). For something different it rained pretty much all week before the race & on race day, being a charity event the general feeling in the paddock was fairly upbeat which is always nice when you are cold & wet. Anyway race underway the plan was to push reasonably hard early & consolidate to round out the 12hrs, the first part of the plan went well but after a touch over 5 & half hours of mud paddling my brakes started to cry foul. The lap prior to that the organisers had to shut off about 1/3 of the track as it was becoming a bit too much. When I pulled out I was running in 2nd with Russell holding down first. The race was eventually called at around the 9hr mark with me sitting in 10th overall. I'm happy enough with my showing & don't have any regrets pulling out. The highlight was getting photos taken on track by the Police forensics photographer, must have been a slow day for them (which is always nice I guess).
• Inferno 6hr - Part of my reasoning for pulling the pin on the 000 challenge was to get home early (before midnight) & prep the bike for Inferno the next day. I love riding at Old Hidden Vale so I didn't want to miss this one. Again riding SS I placed 4th overall and first SS by a few laps. Pretty happy with my result given the caliber of the guys ahead of me (Beckers & Benson) & having done 5+ hours of mud larking the day before.
• Stromlo recee - Not a race, but close enough given the Worlds with be there in October. It's nice when the planets align & a plan works out. I flew down on Friday night, rode the trails Sat arvo & Sunday morn, then drove back to Brisbane Sunday night/Monday (all day) with my mate who was down in Canberra on business. Stromlo is an awesome facility, I can't wait to race there on October.
• Lunatic Fringe 12hr - This was the first hitout on my new Epic 29er dually (see bike updates below). Due to time & mental constraints I set the bike up SS (using an old deraileur as a tensioner) and guessed suspension settings. Not knowing the course I took a punt & put on a 19T rear cog .... which was great for the first few hours until fatigue set in, then I changed to a 20T, then a few laps later put on my biggest cog a 21T. Apart from Sydney24 & CycleEpic this was probably the most SS unfriendly track I've raced a SS on. Plenty of fast flowing areas to spin out on, with a few steep loose climbs that forced you run a short gearing. So in the end I was pretty happy to get 2nd overall & first SS (by quite a few laps), I kept 1st honest keeping the gap down to about 5 minutes for the second half of the race. The event is a long drive from Brisbane (& anywhere really) but it was quite enjoyable and proved as redemption in my mind for the organisers after the Mebbin fiasco.
• Noosa Century (160km) ride (aka race) - My first ever road race (it was billed as a ride, but whenever you get a bunch of over 800 blokes together on bikes and give them numbers it's pretty obvious what is going to happen). While I've not done a race before I've done enough group rides to know that you need to be up the front to keep away from the loonies who can't ride in a straight line or hold a wheel. So I started up front within the first 30 riders and stayed there pretty much the whole ride, on the hills I kept my rhythm and got passed by the usual super climbers but always managed to get my places back on the decents and gentle rollers. I really had no idea what to expect so was expecting to get dropped at any stage when the pace was cranked up. Much to my surprise I found myself about 3 wheel coming out of Eumundi and then in short time I was leading the group ... errr this is odd I thought. I kept it calm, did my turns out front & rolled off when the legs let me know it was time, I was pretty chuffed really. As the peleton rolled through Bli Bli and into the home stretch (via David Low way) I again found myself out front after a cunning move around the outside of the pack and led out for about the next 8km, I was having a hoot rolling along with nothing but police bikes & the skoda course car in front. I knew I was digging in too deep but figured I'd enjoy it while it lasted. Once I'd had my fill I rolled off to rotate the lead but the riders behind didn't want to have a go .... the tactics were starting to playout. Eventually I sat up & forced them through. From there we had about 30km to go and I was starting to fade, then the we hit the hills. I was hurting bad but held on for grim death, at about 10km to go I was off the back and starting to lose the tow of the top 50, I turned around to see when the next wheel was coming by to hook onto, but there was nothing coming. It was do or die time so I put in a huge effort to bridge the gap back to the group, I nearly vomitted in the process but got there eventually, not wanting to drop off again I nestled my way into the group for protection. After a few minuted I started to feel better, then before I knew it we were a few km out from the finish, the pace picked up & thankfully my legs decided we could go with it. Out of the last roundabout it was on, bumping shoulders, some guy got his deraileur pushed into his spokes & it was sprint time. I didn't know where I was in the pack but was pretty sure I got inside the top 10. Once the results came out I found out I was 9th overall less, than 10 seconds off the winner with a time around 4hr 13 minutes, average speed for the 160km was 37.2km/h! I was (& still am) super stoked with my result and am very keen to give some road racing proper a go (after October), I know the guys in the real races will be much harder & smarter but that is all part of the allure. Bring it on!!

• Next race - Mt Perry - stay tuned. 

Bike updates

• After riding Tassie I decided a dually was essential for surviving a 24hr race, there are plenty of guys that do them on hardtails (or even full rigid), but I am not one of them. So after much deliberation I bought a Specialized Epic Marathon 29er frame. Other bikes that were in contention were;
  • Santa Cruz Tallboy - very blingy carbon, about 500g lighter but near on $2k more dearer.
  • Niner Jet9 - the mystery delivery date really put me off this one, they are finally trickling out to warrantee customers in the USA & are coming in at about 100g heavier than the Epic. No word on when local punters will get theirs.
  • Pivot 426 - Jason English rips on his 2 'factory' bikes but I was put off by the 3kg+ weight & more $ than Epic/Niner price tag.
• Now that I have 1 dually & 2 race hardtail 29ers I'm probably going to sell 1 HT frame, not entirely sure if it will be the On-One Ti or the Cannondale. Stay tuned.
• I've got this sh!ts with Lefty forks- I love them when they are working well, unfortunately when you log plenty of km the failures start to come thick & fast. Right now I have 2 newly serviced forks, one has about 30mm of travel (due to bearing 'migration') & the other requires me to carry a shock pump. Time to go back to normal forks & take the weight hit.

Non bike related updates

We won an AIMIA award at word in March this year, the same piece of work was also highly commended at the recent Webby international awards. We are super stoked here at work and are busily working on another project that we think will be even more award worthy. 

So that will do for now, you may continue on your daily chores, check back in a few years for another update.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

00002.mp4 Watch on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

00001.mp4 Watch on Posterous

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

Permalink | Leave a comment  »