Comments on: Lazy Sunday!

By: zorronsky

zorronsky — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:46:05 +0000

Helen: I played in the 1956 Mirboo Nth premiership side. Went back for the re-union [50th] and the current side played Boolara. Big weekend. I was a timber feller then using peg and raker crosscut saw and axe and if you’d walked out to the Darlimurla Rd to the “Big Tree” you’d have seen what we regularly left behind for seed trees. No such thing as clear felling sustainable forests then. Most of the forest I worked was replaced with radiata pine and has since been harvested several times. That’s Silver Creek Pine plantation. The Mountain Hut Rd I camped on for two years was alive with Lyrebirds that imitated all the sounds of the cutting, felling and splitting as well as all of the other birds. A highway to Morewell has replaced the old road. The Strezleci Forest National Park is the tiny remains of what was once a truly magnificent part of the country.

By: Darryl Rosin

Darryl Rosin — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:43:26 +0000

New York City, Center of the Universe… (Jonathan Larson, ‘Rent’)

Spent too much of Saturday in the cold, heavy rain in Times Square trying to work out 1. What show we were going to see; 2. What would be the cheapest way to get tickets to that show, and; 3. Where the hell do we go to get out of the rain. Tempers were very frayed and the answers were 1. The Little Mermaid (couldn’t sell the 10yo on ‘Spamalot’ and couldn’t sell anyone on Patti LuPone in ‘Gypsy’. Philistines, the lot of them…); 2. Time Sq Information centre (not cheap, but warm and dry) and; 3. The Metropolitan museum of Art, where we saw Van Gogh’s Irises, which led to me trying to explain Alan Bond to the kids. My heart was warmed by the sight of a lonely Mondrian in a corner of the Modern collection and my daughter decided when she is asked to copy a master in art class, she’ll be choosing ol’ Piet :^).

Today, Sunday, it was bright, sunny and freezing. Well, it was 8ºC. Which is close enough to freezing for my thin Brisbaney blood and delicate constitution. Wandered some streets, bought some stuff from a street market in Madison Ave. Took a horse drawn cab ride through a corner of Central Park and saw “The Little Mermaid” (‘I want to go where the people are. I want to see, want to see them dancing. Walking around on those… whaddya call ‘em? Oh yeah, feet.’) Then met our friends for dinner at “Carmine’s” which was unbelievably great. A raucous Italian place that looks like it’s barely been painted since the 1920s and serves ‘family style’ food, which means a single ‘main’ comes on a serving plate and is big enough to feed five hungry adults. And you have to shout at the person sitting next to you to be heard over the background noise. Just delightful.

Can’t wait to come home though. Wifey doesn’t share my unbridled enthusiasm for The City and it’s somewhat frustrating with two kids who haven’t really had a full night’s sleep in almost three weeks.

By: David Rubie

David Rubie — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:17:21 +0000

Armidale. It’s more rolling terrain rather than proper hills (although there are a couple of nasty ones here and there). Not sure about being very fit, although being on the bike every day (even if it’s just the relatively short commute) seems to help overall. I swore I’d ride through the entire winter and with one or two exceptions I did just that, although the morning after the minimum temp was -13c was a real struggle

By: Robert Merkel

Robert Merkel — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:08:38 +0000

David, either you’re very fit, or there aren’t any steep hills where you live. Where are you based?

By: David Rubie

David Rubie — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:54:00 +0000

Maybe Robert, you don’t need a 50/34 with granny like 23 at the rear like my Orbea. It’s like being stationary and is almost totally unusable using the 34-23 combo.

By: Robert Merkel

Robert Merkel — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:15 +0000

David: sure I do. But in any kind of rolling hill country, it’s not at all uncommon for there to be short stretches of 10%+ hills. Getting up those, even in the lowest gear, on a 53/39 is a world of unnecessary hurt unless you are a 60kg mountain goat.

By: David Rubie

David Rubie — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:18:57 +0000

Robert Merkel wrote:

Why do bike manufacturers specify 53-39 doubles on bikes sold to the general public?

Robert, you do know about the 10 other gears at the other end?

My bike ended up in the shed for some work since the shifting at the rear was getting crunchy and I could hear the chain skipping occasionally on the jockey wheels. The little plastic jockey wheels were almost entirely covered in mud and sand which was making the chain skip about. Pulled it all to bits, cleaned it and re-greased it, bent the cages back to something resembling straight and now it shifts like new again.

I then made the fatal mistake of washing the bike, which I should do more often since it gets very dirty being used every day, but was horrified to find a crack in the paint around the bottom bracket. My guts dropped through the floor at the thought of being without this hunk of aluminium and carbon fibre. Scraping the paint off a tiny bit showed it was *only* in the paint which is a huge relief. Hopefully I can find a bright orange, metal flake nail polish somewhere. I blame having to sprint past the magpies (which thankfully have finally abated this week).

By: dj

dj — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:06:15 +0000

R0bert – So that we can laugh at weekend trundlers with $5000 bikes. It’s a good point though.

By: Robert Merkel

Robert Merkel — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 01:30:45 +0000

Kyneton to Ballan via Trentham Falls. Why do bike manufacturers specify 53-39 doubles on bikes sold to the general public?

By: Fine

Fine — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:02:58 +0000

Paul Burns, they are very sensitive dogs. The skin thing is very scary. I knew one who got half skinned when bolted off and got caught on a fence. Mine doesn’t seem to upset. I left her this morning chewing on a bone.