Sunday 24 July 2011

Winter Activities

Cyclists don't need to have it hard in winter, they just need to think creatively and wear more clothes.
Can't say the same for the family pets! They just hog the fire and go outside only when necessary.

'Out' the cat under the hedge waiting for the snow to become centimetres deep.

'Mack' the new 7 month old Spangold - resting between chasing the snowfall and retreiving things.
I rode this week mainly on the MTB or the NISS due to icey or snow conditions. Hence the reason the animals stayed inside.
The MTB rides were dedicted to gaining photos for this web site!
http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/weekly-photo-challenge-18711-24711-tarmac


Relocated tarmac: ie dumped.
Local car park.
The topic in both cases was bikes on tarmac which is not public road. Happy eclectic cycling for what ever reason.  Cheers.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Cycling Obssessed - Never!

Rain, cold near gale force winds over the last 24 hours.
Managed to get a very short ride in when the rain cleared still very cold gale force winds under almost full moon. Excellent to get a ride in.
Yesterday took part in the Milton Jail Break Ride along with 65'ish other obssesive people. I rode the short 32km course. Others rode over 50km. Great weather, great people, very hilly course for which it is famous!
Winner rode on this bike....
 Also about was this cool looking single speed:


Danny I think from memory was proud of his moustachioed bike
Cheers to all

Otago Cycling Topics

Winter, 110 days of riding every day, sometimes a bit and sometimes plenty of kilometres meet the tyres.
The cheeky bit is the skils sessions in the moonlight in our pot holed drive, not many km's, but plenty of fun.
Today was also typical, used BELTA the Avanti Blade 8 belt drive to run errands down town. Weak sunshine and long black were the rewards.
Winter also means reading - up on the Kindle at the moment is a copy of Barbara Savages - 'Miles from Nowhere'. Her 1970's journal of riding bicycles around the world with her husband. Interesting and easy to read.
Cycling in Otago is getting plenty of media attention in particular in papers. The Otago Daily Times of Saturday ran two long articles about cycle track proposals in Central Otago.  http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/169350/trails-and-tribulations
Good news from a Dunedin survey regarding increased number of cyclists.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/169401/more-cyclists-year-ago-survey

Cycling Otago has revamped it's web site and is worth a look. A great club which welcomes everyone keen to ride.      http://www.cyclingotago.co.nz/

Then there is the Otago Mountain Bike site :  http://www.mountainbikingotago.co.nz/html/
Local information about rides and races, also friendly people. I plan to do the August 21st winter series race.

When you spend so many hours a week riding the domestic duties are often left up to others:

We have managed to lay some much needed concrete this month, but it did mean I wasn't able to attend the New Zealand Cyclecross Champs in Queenstown. Oh well! At least I now have a solid place to clean the bikes.
Happy winter riding. It's not cold and wet, it's just that you are not well enough dressed!
Eclectically Cycling through winter  -  Cheers.

Sunday 10 July 2011

100 days of riding, why bother?

Yesterday marked an unusual century. Since April 1 when I joined the Twitter group, #30daysofbiking, I have simply kept riding every day.
I had attempted to ride every day in January while I was mostly on holiday and handn't been able to maintain the regime.
So what was different? Simply the online group made the difference:
http://www.30daysofbiking/ is a Minneanapolis based urban cycling group who seemed to have no objections when I joined their group for the month of April.
Pride at completing the first 30 days lead onto a determination to continue riding in some form every day.
The best ride was the Milton Jail Break MTB ride. The best series of rides has to be the 10 days spent riding out of our crib at Naseby. Superb days riding on a great variety of tracks.
Most rides are the morning jaunt to pick up the papers and the delivery them around the neighbours combined with the commute to and from work.
The shortest rides, all five of them, have been either road sprints on the NISS or skills sessions in our potholed driveway. Many of them with headlight on and the latest after 11pm. Fun all the same.
Today's ride was typical.

Keep riding, it's good for the brain!
While I'm riding daily that leaves Mary to manage all the household affairs!

Cheers.