Author: Ben

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Full knowledge here.  

A wet Wellington Challenge this past weekend unearthed two truths; sugar dissolves in the rain, some are harder than others. 1:07, a sterling effort Mr Miller!

Our backyard is a gentle grassy slope, littered with rocks and mounds that resemble small moguls. The perfect playground for a bike riding toddler. Huon has the lines through his little patch sorted, he knows to throw a leg out for moto cornering, which sections to ‘peddle’ through, where to ‘pin it’, and when to apply the brakes. He’s got the yard so dialled I decided it was time to introducing him to a bigger pond, the Taranna State Forest. There are a few small patches of tidy single track up there, and one near enough to the house for a two year old boy to ride. That’s where we headed. We rode up the hill to the head of the single track, stopping at the top to catch our breath and build a sand castle. Huon took the lead on the first descent and I was shocked at the speed he got up on that little 12″ wheeled bike, the boy really did bomb the hill. Not Sam Hill fast, but fast relative to his size. Wow. We spent about an hour doing reps on that one section of single track, each time Huon gained more and more confidence until on the final run he looked for bumps and lumps to ‘jump’ off. We’ll be going back for more in the morning.

English steel frame manufacturers ‘Cotic’ and ‘Singular’ each have a new whip ready to hit the market that has me frothing at the mouth. Been a long term admirer of Cotic’s ‘Simple’ single speed frame, which has just been reinvented in the larger wheel format. Need a long travel, hard tail single speed? This is probably going to be it. The other frame I’m excited about is Singular’s new ‘Buzzard’ model, a long travel, hard tail ‘all mountain’ bike. I’m not a racer, and my idea of a fun bike has short chain-stays, big tyres, can be thrashed downhill, has jumping ability, and can handle being pointed uphill. This one is definitely going on Santa’s shopping list.