Bottles And Chains

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.

  

I heard a patron say, ‘Doesn’t anybody ride motorbikes anymore?’ as I rolled up the the beer garden of the Longley International Hotel on Saturday afternoon. The Hotel has long been the haunt of the bearded and tattooed variety of Bikies (best avoided), but on this occasion I was one of three unrelated sweaty push bikers stopping in for a beer. As the temperature was pushing 30c, I had decided the best way to start my semi-regular loop was with two cooling pints of Cascade Pale and a quick nude swim in the neighboring waterhole. Both the beer and the swim worked as I powered up the hill to Kaoota without bitching, descended the tramway with minimal braking and maximum smile. This is how a good life is fabricated.

Pretty much every route I can think of on the Tasman Peninsula involves a serious amount of climbing. There are no ‘easy’ rides, every ride involves sweat, gritted teeth and a determination to go. Some nights I don’t feel like getting all Lance on the Col Du Galibier, I’m more inclined to avoid the ascent and keep the incline somewhat horizontal. Last night I found that ride. It does exist here and it was so obvious I don’t know how I missed it. Spun my usual route from Taranna through Masons Point to Eaglehawk Neck and was about to point the bike upwards when I glanced across the isthmus to Old Jetty Road… it has light undulations, no major climbs, the bitumen terminates soon after the junction becoming gravel then a fire trail before ending at a locked gate some 6 kilometres distant. Ticks all the boxes. The perfect 25 kilometre after-work route.

Kiwi and I finally got around to tackling the Tunnel Bay ride yesterday. Decided to roll following an extended route, riding via White Beach, Mount Spaulding, Stormlea to Tunnel Bay with a sidetrip to Shipstern Bluff. Sounds easy on paper right? Not so easy when ground truthed, there were hills, ALOT of BIG hills. Very early in the day I came to the realisation that my current physique is not compatible with singlespeeding… I was walking often. I was swearing often. I was wishing for lower gears often.  Having never ridden this route before (or researched it) I was expecting to get lost, which suprisingly didn’t happen. Miracle? Possibly given my previous track record.  Highlight of the day? A swim at Tunnel Bay. It was about 30c, so the dip brought the near boiling blood temparture back down to an acceptable level. We shared the beach with a very dead whale calf. He smelt fairly bad but was worth getting up-close-and-personal with just to check his baleen. Awesome teeth rig those whales have. Lowlight of the day? Sprinting 500m at days end to avoid being eaten by an 85kg dog! Years of track training came to the fore as I spun my 32×22 gear faster than and egg-beater set on high to escape those gnashing jaws!! Don’t think we’ll exit via that route if there is a ‘next-time’.