What with not being able to ride this weekend thought it was good chance to catch up on some bike maintenance.

The Yeti got it's first good clean in a long time yesterday. Just now it received new shifter cables - both inner and outer. Pretty nice Goodridge outers (in 'carbon') with plain old XT inners. I have to say... what a pain in the @ss it is to get the cable into an X0 shifter (rear only - luckily the front is easy peasy).

Another thing to note is that Yeti recommend routing the rear shifter over the BB non-drive side and then behind and across to below to the rear stay on the drive side. I didn't do that when building the bike and reckon it would be pretty much impossible with this Goodridge stuff given how stiff it is!

Anyhow, easy enough to route under the BB and this cable change was well overdue - looks like it's the first time since Yeti was born!

While packing up thought to check chain wear and... lucky... it's time for a new one. So a new CN-7701 is soaking in degreaser and will go on later. Yes, yes... that sticky stuff chains come in is very good grease, but I like to use wax lube on the MTB so it has to come off before fitting. Looks like the last time Yeti got a chain was in Jan '09. A long time, but according to my Garmin Connect stats only just over 700km ago. The Yeti is my 'fun' bike... looks like I haven't been having enough fun in the last 18 months[1]!

[1] Something to do with a cracked rib at Appin in January followed by too much riding on the road

P.S. Note to self. Yeti needs 168cm outer for the rear and around 50cm for the front.

Last Friday I was lucky enough to be invited to a bit of a shindig at the LBS (you know - Local Bike Shop).

Up until now my LBS was probably Cranks in North Sydney (Alfred St) which was a short trundle away. Now however, I'm lucky enough to have a branch of King of the Mountain Cyclery all of a few hundred metres from the front door. Excellent!

As this is their second store (the first being in Cremorne), it's known as KOM2. Very nice place it is too. Honest... the free beer and food has not clouded my judgement!

Anyhow - despite being frequented by a few too many <cough>road riders</cough> it was a nice little gathering to have a nosy at the place and talk... erm... shop?

Cunningly it turns out that the top two riders on the Manly Dam Hot Laps board both work for KOM now. I'll bet that makes for some interesting in-shop banter!

I wish you guys well, now to get some trails built on the oval the other block over and life will be complete

P.S. Some pictures of said store and stuff attached. The workshop was built in part by Gary Harwood - Carpenter Deluxe, very nice!

Nice stuff today. After a dull looking start the sun came out and things were looking great. We could have gone under 2 hours despite the tiredness of yesterday if it weren't for...

1. Logan crying about his legs

2. Buck and Tien both choosing the same line on the same fire trail. I mean, who crashes on a firetrail... at Terrey Hills!?

As I said on Trev's thread...

Depending on the way you view them (love or hate?) it's always sad for a 'cult' of any kind of once trendy fashion - the day your average punter takes what was once an icon of cool and makes of mockery of it.

The cult of SS (single speed) that has been growing in popularity really crossed that line for me today.

Some might have noticed I didn't have much to say last week, and now you can see why... we were in Bali having a really rather nice time

It was rather nice to be able to get up and relax this morning. Breakie (naturally of bacon, beans & eggs) while watching Le Tour from last night.

Then a nice sneaky ride at the Dam just after midday that didn't even require leg warmers showed signs of spring on the horizon.

What a perfect day weekend

As I said elsewhere, "Mont24 - pretty much repeat of last year. Only with female support, faster laps, more rest and no rain. What's not to love about that? :)"

To which someone has commented, "You forgot the dust ..."

Well... meh... the dust wasn't that bad. I didn't even wear clear shades on the night laps (because had leant a pair to Ray and couldn't find the others, then forgot to rip them off his head at transition ) or experience any backscatter from the headlight.

First up - thanks to Unclebullbar for the suggestion and looking after the two randoms (one of whom happens to be a colleague of mine) on the second lap.

However, not sure I thank him for bringing Tate along - he damn near killed me on the 3rd lap. Luckily I was happy for being dragged round as PB'd that course with a 37:34. Interesting that last week I had a similar experience trying to keep up with Steve01 & co and managed a 39:17, so gotta be happy with almost 2 minutes faster today.

I didn't compete in the event this year, but somehow couldn't stay away... Gazza talked me into scumming out from Hornsby (107km return) to check out the race - initially wasn't keen but the few minutes there made it worthwhile. The scum wasn't all that bad either - but given the amount of flood debris on the road it was clear things at Del Rio were not going to be pretty.

Wow! What can you say about this trip... this place... that can do it justice? I guess you really can't so this will probably seem a bit short:

It seems like an age ago that a very brave Supagav posted up this trip and left it open to all. Amazingly brave but it worked out beautifully, and many thanks to him and V and the folks over in NZ for taking care of so much of the organisation.

This was a bit of a strange experience for me to be honest. Usually taking care of every detail of a trip, but this time was able to just turn the brain off and wonder around, eating when food was shoved under my nose, getting in the van when everyone else did, sleeping when tired, pedalling when there was a hill to climb and grinning like an idiot when there were sweet, flowing berms to follow. It was all a blur, but that just about sums it up!