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Rob's Homemade LEDs
This article is very old now, it's best to look around our forums to find some newer information.
I'd been thinking about night riding for some time, and having bought an el-cheapo set of halogen riding lights to try it out was liking it a lot. The el-cheapo lights consisted of 5W+10W beams fixed to the bars and that could be switched independently. While OK for fire trail this didn't seem adequate for technical stuff so went looking for more powerful sets.
Not happy with the pricing of available offerings, and thinking things could be built up a lot cheaper a bit of a mission followed. What you read here are the results, and on the whole, am very pleased how things worked out.
This is a fairly lengthy article, it's split into several pages:
Trail Maintenance is Fun!
So it's 8:30 on a sunny, spring, Sunday morning and you'd usually be about to hit your favourite trail with a few mates. But what if the weather the last few weeks has been nothing but abismal? And what if your favourite trail is just a soggy bog and closed? Sure you could ride an alternate but, as I found out last weekend, there's options available to help maintain our friends the trails on days like this.
Read on to find out what happened when I joined the rangers from Warringah Council at an organised maintenance day...
Know When to Replace Drive Train Bits!
While the act of replacing your cogs and chainrings is simple, knowing when to do so isn't. What constitutes a worn sprocket is measured in mere 100ths of an inch - not easy to see at a glance. Even worse, the consequences of doing the wrong thing in the drivetrain department can be very hazardous indeed. Luckily, all potential ugliness can be avoided with a little preventive maintenance.
Polaris Challenge 2006
Well, the 2006 Polaris Challenge is done and dusted and it was certainly dusty. It's the 10th Polaris Challenge in Australia, and was the best that I have been to (albeit only my third)
The location this year was Delegate, right on the NSW/VIC border. Huw tells us they actually had to officially declare the Black-Allen line for the event as no-one had bothered before...
Thredbo – Easter 2004
The Cannonball Run, Kosciusko, Cascade Hut and back.
The day (Sunday) started out with a bit of rain but cleared up during the day. By 9.00am, all the men and children raring to go (there were about 6 adults and 7 boys under the age of 18 in our group). I was still hesitating, after being told in no uncertain terms by Colin "not to do it", but I signed up anyhow, kitted up in my full body armour and headed out for the skills session...
January 2004 Western Australia - the Munda Biddi trail
Justin and I rode the trail from Mundaring to Brookton Highway on the 16th Jan 2004 (a total of about 45km on the trail, and then 25km on the Brookton Highway to Kelmscott station).
We left at 8am and the first 10km was a breeze. However, not long after leaving Mundaring Weir we encountered the pea gravel, and from about 12km to 35km it was pretty hard going, especially in the heat. We had to get off and walk a lot, especially on the hills. We thought the profile map was a bit misleading. This was meant to be the "easy" section, but even the hills weren't as difficult to deal with as the gravel.