Mountain Bikes – bikesbabesbytes

Back on the Giants

A couple of weeks back I broke out the mountain bike and headed down a (boring flat) local dirt road, just to make sure it’s all working. I think I might have had the idea to get a few rides in over the, then upcoming holiday period.

And I got a flat and had to walk back the 5kms.

Repaired that. A few days later I headed out again. This time it went flat after I got home. I had a new tube, so swapped that in. A short way down the road on the next ride and ANOTHER flat. This was getting weird.

Each time, I had checked the tube, checked inside the tyre in case there was something in the tyre. The third time I looked at the whole wheel, and tyre. I noticed that the puncture happened at the same point on the inside of the tube. The rim side. I checked spokes, looked for something stuck there.

The only thing I could find was a fold in the rim tape inside the wheel.

About the same time I became tired of the shifting on the Cross City (commuter) playing up and discovered that the shifter on the Trance had been broken (it functioned, but the covers were smashed). I booked the Trance in, and then the Cross City.

I toyed with the idea of replacing the Trance. Giant was having a sale and my dad offered to pay half of a new bike. But even with that, I couldn’t really justify spending a couple of thousand on a bike that I rode about once a year, when a few hundred would see it all back in shape.

So that took up a week or so of the break. But I did get out on the Trance. I went to Wylde twice. It seems I haven’t been there since January 2022. That’s the last time the Trance went anywhere that wasn’t the local dirt road in more than 2 years. And shows why I really couldn’t justify a new one.

Wylde was nice, and I started to warm up to riding again. It’s smooth and flows well. Most of the trails have B-Lines, though there were a couple of places where I chickened out outside of these obstacles. Once I let myself roll up a great big berm that the last lap I had chickened out. Only halfway up I freaked out and stopped. Up the top in the middle of the curve. I’m lucky it wasn’t busy!

I also tried another place that I found, called Kentlyn. I didn’t like this as much. The trails are very rocky, and I struggled with several of the steps up the rocks. It reminded me of Glenbrook. I’m not sure I’ll be back there.

Kentlyn, ok, this part of the trail was nice

But it’s the last Friday of the holidays and work is on again on Monday. So it might be 10 weeks before my next ride on Wylde.

2021 – Another big year

Well 2021 turned out to be even more of a strange and significant year than 2020. Again, with my wife and I both in “essential services” we weathered the COVID lockdown storm better than a lot. We did have a couple of near misses, mostly me, with being close contacts and having to test or isolate. But so far we’ve dodged it. We are both fully vaxxed and so are our kids. Mrs and I both have had the booster too.

About Bikes

The Ninja didn’t see as much riding as expected. The lockdown had me at home about 3 days a week so it didn’t commute as often. Worse, the MotoGP, for which I had been planning and organising for most of the year, was cancelled at about 100 days out. Still, we did get in a ride to Canberra and to Newcastle, both of which went well. So it’s not all bad. It’s approaching 42,000km now with almost 40,000km of that being my own after 3 years of ownership. Possibly the lowest tally of any bike I’ve owned?

On the way back from Canberra via Kangaroo Valley

I am planning for the MotoGP this coming year. With Jack Miller and Remy Gardener both in the main game it will be exciting from an Australian perspective. Otherwise, the bike might see only a little riding as I don’t think I’ll be commuting as much on it.

I bought a tent and some other stuff that I will plan to use in 2022

As for the other two wheels, I’ve spent a little time in lockdown getting used to cycling again. I did plan a whole bunch of mountain bike rides as the lockdown finished and work wound down, but weather and life found a way to block it. I’m hoping January will be different.

Actual dust on my MTB for the first time in 6 years?

About Babes

Mrs and the eldest both carry on fine. The younger one starts high school in 2022. Not much else happening there. One plays Genshin Impact whenever she gets the chance. The other swaps between Switch games and Roblox. Again, with enough devices and steady internet, they completed their own schooling from home without any drama during our lockdown.

About Bytes

Of course, the biggest news there is the final gasping death of the PC. My 1st gen i7 has finally gone dark (and I mean this literally, no post screen even). I suspect the actual culprit is the 9800GT. Sorry, Mrs, looks like I’ll have to buy a whole new PC, this one is dead….

Yes, that’s a 11(?) year old video card. Probably 11 years of dust too.

So I did. I’ve ordered an 11th Gen i5. I did want to get a 12th gen, but my budget won’t stretch that far. It’s also going to be a mini-ITX case, so much smaller than the mid-tower it replaces. I’ll post a full description in a week or two when the parts have arrived and I’ve built it.

Not really a lot else in this category. I’ve saved up enough that even on top of the emergency PC purchase I am still intending to upgrade my 9.7 iPad Pro to a new one. I may hold off long enough to see if they do add the M2 chip or the mini-LED screen makes its way to the 11″ Pro before I do. The Surface has had much more use this year, so the iPad is less urgent.

Dungeons & Dragons continued well also. I’m running two groups at the moment and playing in two games. I think it will be a little much in 2021, so I plan to wind up one of the games I’m running (the Ghosts of Saltmarsh) and move the Wild beyond the Witchlight game to Friday (as a replacement). I also plan to leave one of the other games, probably the Sunday crawl. It’s more of a home-brew than a straight crawl, and a lot of fun, but I’m more interested in the story from CoS. Though perhaps if my character dies, I’ll pull the character from the home-brew as my Dwarven wild magic sorcerer is proving a bit of fun too. I also messed about a little with Battletech again, which I have enjoyed. I wonder what it would be like against a real person… (I imagine I will lose terribly).

About Me.

Well last, and by no means least is the decision to finally make the official career switch that has been building for about the last 5 years. Next year will see me as a full-time primary school teacher. While I won’t have my own class, I will have a set schedule so I will be able to work on finalising my proficiency, ready for my own class the following year (fingers crossed).

It is a big life change and certainly at the beginning when I am at the bottom of the salary pile, I think things will be a lot tighter at home than they have been for some time. Thankfully we have ourselves pretty nicely set up and things like upgrading the PC and the iPad are already budgeted.

Wylde

With COVID restrictions eased, the kids back at school, but not needing to be in the office all the time yet, I logged in to work really early today. But there was method to my madness.

After dropping the kids at school, this time I put the MTB in the back of the car and headed to the Wylde Mountain Bike Park. As far as I know, this is the closest park to me for riding. And it had been a long time since I’ve been there. It turns out it was just a few days short of six years.

I really enjoyed myself. The trails are so much smoother than the ones behind Glenbrook, so it was a pleasure to ride. I found a lot of the confidence I had been missing on my previous outing to Glenbrook. Even to the point I was getting air and railing along the banked turns.

Of course, there is always the slog up the hill, but Wylde is not a straight climb (like Stromlo!). There were also some nice wide bits to pull off the trail and catch my breath. Like Stromlo, but not Sparrow Hill (where I used to ride) it is one way, and mostly well signposted. There are some changes occurring at the moment, so some trails seem to be shut off or modifications have occurred since the maps were created.

I set out to do the 12km loop, then decided that I would do a 6km loop and then I could repeat it if I felt up to it or enjoyed it. In the end, with the changes, and possibly me linking trails together incorrectly, my 6km loop turned into a 8.5km loop and I went the length of the park. I think some of the 12km is closed off for the time being.

Overall, I was really happy. Nice smooth tracks, friendly riders, pleasant weather. And most certainly NOT an epic skills fail like last time. Only drag is that it is about 30mins drive from home.

I hope to get out there before another 6 years goes past.

Lockdown Week umm 8?

Sydney is in the throws of its biggest lockdown since COVID started. I live in one of the most affected suburbs, with extra strict rules about where we can go and what we can do. So what have I been doing. And what has been keeping me sane?

Well work carries on. I’ve even had a few teaching days. But the main thing is that I’ve been getting as much two wheels as I can…

On my bike to work…

On my commuter bike (to the shops and around the way)…

I even broke out the mountain bike. I took it to work one day and tried the trails around there. It was epically terrible, I have not ridden MTB on any trails for probably 6 years and it showed…. I will have to go back again.

D&D has also helped, with all my regular games running and a new crawl filling in for a face to face that one of the other DMs has started.

Family wise, we’ve tried to have a cheat meal once a week of ordering something in. Mostly its been nice, but unsurprisingly, the times we’ve gone to “fast food chains” they’ve been rubbish.

And we’ve built up our home gym some as well.

I also slept in my tent in the backyard one night. With the most recent extension, I don’t expect to get out for a trip this year, maybe just before Christmas? It will likely just be in NSW too.

More sloped than it looks made for an uncomfortable night

I hope you are all staying safe as well.

Chasing the Old Man

Been a week since we got back to Australia from NZ. It was a great trip and I got two MTB rides with my dad. I was very impressed with the trails around Rotorua, they were fast, fun, smooth and extensive. Busy as well, but it was the school holidays so I guess that was to be expected.

Dad lives close enough that after a couple of km we were at the base of the trails. From here, both times, it was of course…. UP.

And up in NZ is a lot different to up in Australia, where we have small rises and they get called mountains. In NZ they actually have mountains and so the small rises and large hills are just that, small rises and large hills. And so Dad has spent pretty much every day for the past ten or more years riding these trails, and up these hills.

No sweat for him, but his poor Aussie son (and previously his poor Aussie son-in-law) had to walk parts of the up. But we were rewarded with some pretty cool trails. A couple of the more well known are probably “Mad if ya don’t” and “B Rude not 2”.

I had to struggle along on his “other” bike – a carbon framed Santa Cruz Solo, while he struggled ahead on the Bronson, also carbon framed.

Honestly, it was only a couple of times when I actually had to lift the bike that I felt the lack of mass.

I went as fast as I was confident to ride, and was pretty scared most of the way down really. I checked out Dad’s usual times for those runs and he was holding back about 25-50% on most runs. Oh dear, I have a lot of catching up to do…

Up the Mountain

The big name in MTB in Canberra is Stromlo. Mt Stromlo has a set of dedicated tracks, built to a standard that at least national (and I think international) people race at. The park also includes a track for roadies.

This was only my second time here, and I had forgotten why I kind of don’t like it.

You ride up for about 45mins, and its not very gentle.

Then you ride down for about 10 mins.

And if you want to go again, you ride up again for 45 mins more.

Again.

Down is pretty cool with sharp banked turns, that being used to the more gentle slopes of Sparrow Hill I am a little out of my depth on. They should be fun, but mostly I just yell and hold on.

I did get some air, or at least I got the front off the ground at a couple of points.

But overall I like Sparrow the best out of Sparrow, Stromlo and Majura.

Tired, Busy, Distracted

Too much on at once. Been distracted.

Unsubbed WoW, but missed it by two days so the account is still live.

Work… busy busy. Haven’t had a break for about 8 days.

Moving house soon. Still trying to finish it.

Daytona in service waiting for parts. Really really want to ride her. Miss the VFR still 😦

MTB going well though. Getting fit, losing weight, enjoying the challenge.

Can’t sleep.

Two wheels (move the soul!)

Monday seems to be a standard ride the Daytona day this summer.

Not that I mind.

This time I headed somewhere different. The road from Canberra to Bateman’s Bay is apparently interesting.

Well it is, but you have to ride for about 45mins down a pretty boring road across the plains to get there. But Clyde Mountain, wow. It’s pretty steep and winding and I don’t think I got to the end before I hit my turnaround time. It was also in the middle of being resealed so I’ll give a month or so and might head that way again. Except for the hours of boring stuff.

The road out to Marulan, though less technical, more interesting. I might do that next Monday. Or tomorrow?

OOOOhhhh Friday morning on the MTB, I was massively happy. There is a turn on a track called See Saw that I fallen on 3 times and skipped at least twice. Rode down it without falling or stopping Friday. I think the whole forrest heard my happy yell.

Got out again this afternoon, trying a newly built trail. A fun ride actually, “Brake Dance” and “Rock and Roll”. Both had some tricky stuff and both were mostly downhill, so good fun. However the uphill bits were harder as the new trail was still pretty soft (not compacted by lotsa tyres).

Disappointment though in the end as I hit “Creek Run” a fun quick blast at the end…. the back started getting really loose and it was obvious I had another flat. Two in three rides.

Spoiled that last hurrah.

Home and I FINALLY washed the Daytona, the Trance (my MTB) and fixed the tyre. Actually pretty happy about getting that stuff done.

And then the afternoon too??

Tuesday I got to work and found an email from a friend, he wanted to hit Sparrow Hill in the afternoon. But I’d already ridden that day and my MTB was at home…

But that’s only 20mins round trip after resting all day.

So we rode into Kowen, he knew his way around so I let him lead. Did about 12km and that added to the 10km I did in the morning. Actually was quite surprised to find that I had covered that much.

And remember my levers problem? Well I was riding along and the handlebars were just really looking strange, sort of sloped in and down.

I had been suspicious that they had been slowly rotating over the past few rides, but I couldn’t remember how they started out so wasn’t sure. And if it was rotating, it was happening really, really slowly.

We stopped and had a look. My mate thought they looked odd too, so I broke out the tools.

As soon as I loosened the bolts in the clamp, it was obvious it was loose. The bolts were tight enough that the bar was firm, but they were just not tight enough, that it must have been slowly rotating as I rode along.

Another problem fixed.

Though I did have to turn my levers back around too 😦

Thursday morning I did another 10km in the forest before work too. Might head out tomorrow as well. Good fitness yeah!

Sunrise in the Forest.

So sunrise on Tuesday found me already in the Sparrow Hill carpark. I woke up early and realised that I could get out there and have a ride before work. Then afterwards, shower and change at the gym at work.

What a great plan.

So I did about an hour in the forest. Started out on Short Loop again, but was worried about the time so cut out the last 5km after small gate.

Stopped at one point and rotated my levers as they were at a funny angle. Much more comfortable. (this is important later)

So I got back in the car when I realised that I had left my locker key at home. /doh! So in the car and headed home to get it. As I was heading home I thought, you know I should just shower at home and then go back to work.

And ride the Daytona in.

Yeah…. that’s a plan.