Fact: Mountainbiking is more fun than working.

I had a day off work on Thursday as it's school holiday time and after shipping The Midget Assassin off to daycare the boys and I headed out to Woodhill for a ride in the forest. Spring in Auckland has been very wet and I was determined to make the best of an overcast but dry day. 

We normally ride with other families in our street but it was nice for a change just having the three of us. It would be better still if the girls could join us but at three The Midget Assassin is still on training wheels. As it happened we met up with some friends at one of the trail-heads and rode with them for a while.

Someone needs a bigger bike

Thing-One led the way on the structures

I managed not to hurt myself...

but the youngest rider preferred dancing.

When I mail-ordered the last parts for the Cross-Check I got some flat BMX pedals for the Pugsley. Most of my riding is around the neighbourhood or along the beach and I don't need to be clipped-in. It's nice just jumping on wearing whatever footwear you happen to have on at the time. The Crank Brothers Mallets I had on there are a platform style with the "eggbeater" mechanism in the middle, but they were never comfortable with casual shoes as the eggbeater sat proud and you could feel it through the sole of your shoe. The new ones are Magnesium Wellgo MG-1s and they are very light and comfortable. Not so good on the fast and bumpy stuff but it was nice not being clipped-in when riding the structures.

There's always a groan when I say we're going cycling. I live in hope that with dad being such a fanatic the habit would catch-on but the boy's bikes sit in the garage for weeks at a time until I bribe them into a ride. Once we actually get going however they never fail to have a good time so they might pick-up the habit when they get a bit older. 

When I was their age my bike and skateboard were tickets to freedom and I couldn't wait to hit the streets. I would ride just for the sake of it with no particular destination in mind - I still do!

Ergon GE1 Review

A whale dies for each display-card produced

I just re-read my initial impressions and fell asleep half way through, so I'll keep this one brief. 

Thanks to fellow blogger DB I've been trying out the small size over the last fortnight as I had come to the conclusion that the large size was a bit big to use with gloves. I've been out to Woodhill a couple of times with mixed results. Super-comfy with my polyprop glove-liners but when I got hot and took those out they felt a little small and harsh on the bumpy downhill stuff. This was purely a sizing issue and may not be a problem with the suspension forks that most people run. I had lots of control for technical riding and I like they way you can slide your hands inwards against the flange for an alternative hand-hold.

What I liked:

- Comfortable

- Well made

- Really easy and quick mounting with the single clamp

- Quirky looks

- Wide grip area

What irked me:

- The packaging is totally over the top

- The clamp is a bit bulky (Slimmed-down on the updated model)

- No medium. Underwear doesn't just come in large and small. 

As Ergon states on their website: "The sculpted shape better distributes the load away from the nerves entering your hand. It may not look revolutionary, but the effect is noticeable."

My grandmother always told me that things come in threes and I've just won a third pair of Ergon grips in a photo competition on Flickr. Hopefully they send me a pair with "wings" as I'd like to see if they'd work for me with the sweep of my bars.

Woodhill testing ground

Testing finished and heading for home

You don't want to lose that silver ring inside the clamps

This is as high off the ground as I get

Family Mountainbiking at Woodhill

As I've mentioned previously there's no shortage of keen mountainbikers in our small cul-de-sac so every month or so a call will come out of the blue arranging a group ride. We always go to Woodhill Mountain Bike Park as it's ridable all year round and the kids enjoy the man-made structures out there. 

As anyone with children will attest to, just about any organized activity will cost you an arm and a leg. That's one of the attractions of Woodhill for me, it's actually reasonably priced and that encourages me to go more often. For casual visits it costs me $6 as an adult, $4 for my 11 year old and my 8 year old is free. We take our own food so the only additional cost is the petrol for the 70km round trip. 

It's a good set-up with plenty of parking and toilets, a coffee hut and a shop if you feel like spending more money. My boys aren't keen cyclists but they enjoy the trails enough to tear themselves away from their Nintendos for half a day.

Thing-One tackles the see-saw while we decide which trails to ride.

"I'll be damned if my big brothers going to do something I can't"

It's good, clean, healthy fun and until my daughter (The Midget Assassin) gets off training-wheels it's also a chance for a bit of male-bonding in the family. A bit of mud, sweat and blood is good for the soul.

Queens Birthday Ride

Lets just start by saying I don't give a damn how old Betty Windsor is, but for reasons unbeknown to me New Zealand celebrates her birthday each year with a public holiday. It's not even observed on her actual birthday, but I'll take a day off mountainbiking with my kids over working any day. 

We live in a very social street with lots of kids and lots of cyclists. Every month in summer and more sporadically in winter a few of the families meet at the Woodhill Mountainbike Park for a family ride. It's not too taxing, usually a two hour ride followed by a two hour barbecue, pine-cone fight and a re-hydration session for the telling of tall tales. The rider who has the most spectacular crash or sustains the most horrific injury is awarded the "Kamikaze Trophy" and a chocolate bar to ease the pain.

We had the coldest night of the year in Auckland where the temperature plummeted to 4ºC (thanks to some winds blowing North off Antarctica) but Monday morning dawned crisp and clear and the sun stayed out most of the day. 

I might ride the Pugsley fixed next time as you don't get much of a work-out riding with kids, even on a 36lb singlespeed, but I had a great time and look forward to the next one. 

My two boys are not as keen on cycling as their father, but with a dozen of their friends around there's always someone slower than you to pass and someone faster to chase after. It's fun and motivating and they always have a blast.

We just about had the lower car-park to ourselves.

Custom made Possum perch.

Post-ride munching.

Some extra trail-obstacles out there today.

Thing-Two performing for the camera.

Waiting for the stragglers.

A week of bicycling

Lots of riding done this week. Commuting duties, daughter hauling, food shopping, two lots of mountainbiking and unicycle training. My legs are all worn out!

A visit to Lake Pupuke to look at the movie set of "Under the Mountain" being taken down.

My sons have joined the school unicycle club and have loaner bikes (they're not really bikes, are they?) to get the hang of it. How cool is that, a primary school with a unicycle club. On mondays the school bike-rack has as many unicycles as bicycles locked-up in it.

Have you ever tried to ride a unicycle? I'm giving it a go as well, but seem to have made no progress at all, it's damn hard. I can ride a two-wheeled bike on one wheel no problem, but I'm finding it a great challenge on the real thing. A circus career is some way off. 

I have learned one thing: When you start to fall, don't try and catch the unicycle. I read this on some internet instructions and ignored it to my detriment. I ended up in a pile on the garage floor with the uni on top of me and a gored leg from pedal-bite. I will let it drop next time! 

Surly actually make a muni (mountain-uni) called the Conundrum which has the same Large Marge/Endomorph wheel as the Pugsley. Now that would turn some heads.

Bad drivers with small penises and stupid vehicles have made it down to our corner of the South Pacific. Look how this mental-midget has parked across the footpath.

I took Thursday off work to look after the boys as it's school holiday time and we went out to Woodhill Forest to the mountainbike park. Finn and Hunter aren't keen cyclists but they enjoy riding out there and we had a lot of fun together. 

Finn and I got shown-up by eight-year-old Hunter attempting every jump and structure he came across, so we were shamed into trying some of them. I rode a lot of stuff that I would normally avoid and gained some confidence, but I think one metre off the ground is about my altitude limit. I must be getting old.

Thing-Two stealing water from my Camelbak

I went out to the same forest yesterday with my friend Murray and had a good 2.5 hr ride at a much faster pace. Last night my thighs were sore like I'd been to a gym or something, but I feel fine today. The great thing about Woodhill is it's a plantation pine forest effectively planted on coastal sand dunes, so the soil is very free-draining, even in the middle of winter, and just about never gets muddy.

The park is run as a business and you have to pay to use it, but the trails are fantastic and well maintained. It's $6 for adults and $4 for ten and overs which I think is reasonable. If it was more expensive I would go less.

Showing-off for the camera

Sick Ride Man

Officially Sick

A funny thing happened last week out at Woodhill Mountain Bike Park. I had the Pugsley propped-up outside the shed where you pay before you ride. Two young guys were behind the counter and I was initially asked if it was a "sick ride". I translated this into 42-year-old and informed them it was indeed a lot of fun. 

The other guy then asked me if the fat tyres gave a soft ride like a bike with suspension. You should have seen the looks on their faces when I told them I had never ridden a bike with suspension, so I didn't know. It was priceless. Their young minds could not comprehend that someone had only ever ridden fully rigid mountain bikes. I wish I had my camera that day.

If I knew any other 6' 6" riders I would love to swap bikes and try out something different, but it has never happened. No one but me has ridden the Pug and apart from the odd blast around a car park I have never ridden anyone else's. The seats just don't go up high enough!

Wet, muddy, happy imbiber.

Went for a ride in the forest today in near storm conditions with my friend Murray. A bit of a training ride for the race in two weeks and a chance to test out some of my new gear while riding a lot faster than I normally do. It was bucketing down the whole time and I have never seen the trails so waterlogged out at Woodhill. Large sections of singletrack were under 6 inches of water and it was fun blasting through that with 4 inch wide tyres. The base is sandy so you are doing no real damage.

Most welcome post ride warm-up dram.

Conclusions: 

• The Camelbak was great today. I didn't even notice it on my back and I drank a lot more than if I was using bidons and ingested a lot less mud. 
  
• It was not however waterproof and I'm glad I didn't take my camera. Everything inside got totally soaked.
  
• The carbohydrate "squeezy things" that I purchased for the race tasted like licking a cat's bum, but with a hint of lemon. 
  
• They seemed to work however. 
  
• My new Kool-Stop brake pads which have been noisy, grabby and annoying on the road worked great in the dirt. 
  
• I still need to put on some more weight after the food poisoning as my baggy wet shorts kept slipping off my hips. 
  
• My ankle died after 2 hours but I think with a bit of racing adrenaline I could ride through the pain and get 3 or more hours out of it. 
  
• My new Ahearne Spaceman Flask Holster retained its contents over some pretty rough terrain. 
  
• My riding glasses kept the mud out of my eyes but fogged-up quite badly. I have some anti-fog spray from my motorcycle riding days somewhere that I must dig out and use.