before finishing

This is the paint on the primer.
Not bad for a can of spray! - at least it's a bit less embarrasing than the crusty b4 shots.
Sticky spongy stuff inserted to protect the paint from the pump.

Next hopefully i'll use some cutting/buffing compound to tidy up the edges and the finish, and then perhaps paint black stripes to cover the paint transition fromm the different silvers.

After that a clear super hard enamel of some sort should keep it unscathed..

Today i was able to sprint on the m5 heading west under the King Georges road up over the hill and maintain over 40kph.
And then over 50kph from just after fairford road to my River road exit.. woohoo. not bad. - the sprint training is paying off.

Rant. It was a dark and stormy night

I didn't get to race today - but - it's not all about me. 'I' should probably be avoided as a starting word for all blog entries.

The wife is off to listen to someone at a talk, and after that she will attend her highschool's 15 year reunion. So i am entertaining our rodents.

Here's the plug for my bike mechanic / source of training tips....
http://www.peterbundycycles.com.au
160 belmore road, riverwood between Hair and Beauty and Subway, ( I guess that's a suggestion that inbetween looking good and eating right, one needs to exercise )

Peter is generous with his time, and entertains all of the crazy people that turn up in the store to 'rant' or 'chat'.

He's quite busy with repairs of all sorts, and can often be seen slaving away in the store before 7am. Your work will always be ready on time.

Forget ebay, forget probikekit.com ~ there's always a bargain at bundy cycles too. Even though i'm happy to pay the listed price ~ i end up with change in the pocket!

No hard sell required.

stage 1..

Wet'n'dry paper first to get all the crusty's off.
There are a few spots still but i'm hoping the etch primer can cope with that.

corrosion or carbon.. u choose.

Never buy a giant bike unless it's full carbon - or powdercoated
this is what happens!

Admittedly it all started with a little nick caused by the pump.

And now I shall attempt the repair..
600 wet'n'dry paper. And some white knight sls etch primer

More Pain...

The people at the sign-on desk were quite convinced that A grade is a good grade to race in and eventually convinced me to try...

I was not disappointed. - just completely exhausted, smashed over, redlined and punished for signing up. The first 20 laps didn't seem that painful. I did a few turns at the front and there were a few surges that i kept up with. But after that the attempts to break the race apart became extremely punishing, and I was dropped from the lead group with 3 laps to go.

I spent a whole lap in no-mans land, and was collected by 3 riders who had been dropped earlier. Thankfully the lead group had started playing a waiting game, and we caught them before the bell, and all came up the last climb together.

I went with the last attack and managed 5th... - which is completely beyond my exepctations.
I need a lesson though and some serious training in dealing with the attacks and surging that goes on at this level.

I WON THE BAKEOFF!! woohoo.
The company raised a few hundred bucks for jeans 4 genes day.

Jeans 4 Genes

Today is Jeans for Genes day at work, and we had a bake off..
Here's what I baked..
It's called Gateau Concorde au Chocolat, named after the Concorde Plaza in Paris. I got the recipe from sbs website after watching the tour arrive in paris

RaceDay...

Yesterday was race day for me, as is every 1st and 3rd Saturday of the season.

I was extremely nervous at the start, since there was quite a turn out of riders - 20 or so for the b-grade race. I did a few turns on the front early on, but started to realise that this was because none of the young fellows wanted to do their turn at the front on the up-hill part of the course, so since they're all bludging, i slunk(is that a word) to the back of the pack for a while.

About half way through, three riders took off and maintained a 200m lead for a lap or so. I thought that they'd go again and leave us for good, and no-one would get a place from the bunch, so i took it upon myself to reel them back in.

When we heard the bell for the last lap, i wasn't ready, since i was reading the wrong lap counter board, and thought we had more to go. Anyhow some guy decided to break away even before the bell, and kept a good 100m away for the first half of the last lap.

Again - i took the initiative to catch him, since i didn't fancy my chances in a bunch sprint, so I went with half a lap to go. 2 others came across with me, and after we caught the breakaway, I saw that the other two were playing the waiting game, so i sprinted again, but I didn't have enough for two efforts so close together, and they both took me on the line. - But it got me 3rd place.

My mrs reckons it was because i turned around to look at the competition when i was coming to the line, and i could have held them off if i had just kept on stomping..

Anyhow.. that's the lesson I guess. Don't bother lookin' when the sprint is cookin'.

Viva Le Tour

As with all crazy cyclists, i am spurred on by the tour. The average for the trip home today was 32.4 ( against a 20kph breeze)

I've had the privilege of being able to watch each day's Tour as shown by SBS on my PDR at work.
I don't think it will be helping my productivity - but makes for entertaining background noise.

It's a bit sad that robbie's team was not able to get good position in the finish last night, but at least he had some support to give it a go. (Silence Lotto have to do something about mozilla support for robbies website - i have emailed the webmaster)

First day in the mountains tonight. Go Cadel.

I woke up dreaming of drinking in the 'beer garden'

This was an unfortunate start, as i was remeniscing about the friday work lunches from my old work. It became awfully hard to not continue the fantasy with another round of drinks. Perhaps because the new work is a little more serious, and unlikely to have rounds of drinks at friday lunch. Programming skill is quite severely affected by alcohol and one can usually only type on the space bar with the forehead.

However, by the time i'd read a psalm and got on the bike, things were much better.
32.2kph on average today for 23.9km is not a bad effort. I have a niggling achillies injury but is ok to ride on.