hawkeye's blog

First ride after breaking the collarbone. Was just a short ride mainly on the footpath from home to the gym to do some leg work and try to keep the core strength up while off the bike. But I couldn't help myself, and took a couple of little bush trail short cuts.

Had lots of fun, although wasn't game to try riding all of the woodwork. The flow track is great fun, although I agree Black Flash's comments that it's much too short.... looking forward to Stage 2! Riding it was a real hoot, though. If I was up there by myself I reckon I could spend an entire session going around and around.

The pump track was hugely popular with the kids. By the time we returned from our exploration of the fire roads off the eastern end of the park, it was packed.

Simon, Singlespeeder, Hawkeye and Hawkeye Jnr spent a few hours today looking at the Allambie trail section from 19th Hole to Cootamundra Drive/Monserra Road. If you were naughty and had been riding there in the wet today you will have noticed lots of yellow spraypaint on the ground by the side of the trail.

The circles with crosses through them will be where the contractor places large rocks to corral riders and - we hope - stop trail widening.

It was surprising how long it took. The key issue was to confine the track while both reducing speeds and maintaining trail flow.

Finished second in Men's 3's at Yellomundee, out of a field of five.

Found the heat tough to deal with. Temp was around the 40C mark, which isn't as tough as some have endured recently, but the humidity was challenging. Kudos to you guys riding solo and pairs.

Thanks to RobbieO for accompanying me today at Kiwarrak.

'Twas a fairly cruisy pace for the most part - Heartrate Hill excepted - and we found Sweet As which I missed last time we visited a few weeks ago. I can reliably inform y'all that that trail is aptly named. I'll clean Heartrate Hill one day. And thanks to the locals who go around and blow the leaf litter off - the grip is pretty awesome - and so are you guys.

The gap between the trees can be pretty tight - all the better for keeping the motos out. Pleased to say that none of them jumped out in front of me today.

That was harder than I expected. Because it was relatively flat, you were on the gas pretty much the whole time.

This afternoon I went on what was supposed to be two laps of Duck Holes and Centre Tracks loop, but a couple of hundred metres in I picked up a huge stick in the rear derailleur.

I managed to skid to a dusty halt before it ripped the rear end off, but the hanger was obviously bent. I duly extracted the stick and whipped out the multi-tool to straighten the hanger. A quick whip up and down the gears while the bike was still on its back. Yep. All good.

Did a lazy lap around Manly Dam very late this arvo.

The good news is the bike commuting to Sydney Olympic Park from the Northern Beaches is starting to pay off well with fitness gains.
The climb up Hart Break Hill, while still a test, didn't max out the ticker. Now I'm looking for speed and power gains.

Just had an awesome session with a bunch of blokes from Taree this moring riding the trails around Kiwarrak.

Best fun I've had for a very long time. There's something like 30km of singletrack hidden in there, maintained by some very active trail fairies. Bridges, berms, see-saws, ramps and jumps, All-mountain, downhill, dirtjump, XC loops, it's all there. Apparently for the Easter weekend they had a few hours spare so they walked around with a petrol blower blowing the dust and leaf litter off the trail!

Looks like I won't be doing any riding on the weekend.

A mate's crushing handshake when he picked me up to go see the 1-day cricket on Sunday has left me with bone fragments floating around the knuckle at the base of my pinkie. Looks like my broken hand wasn't as solidly healed from my pre-Christmas road rage crash as I thought.

So I'm off to get x-rays in the morning, and am very unlikely to be doing any riding for the next several weeks (again) on anything but a gym spin bike. And that's if they don't have to cut me open again.

!@#$%^&!