Endless Summer

It's almost Novemeber and we are now coming upon New Zealand Summer. It is Spring now and the nights are cold and the days get up to "cool" and sunny. I run the heat at night

Before this we spent a year in OZ with pretty much endless summer. Before that was British Columbia summer spent surfing and enjoying Vancouver Island. Before that was spent enjoying the Arizona WInter (but a summer for most people). Then again before that was Vancouver Island. And again...right before that a bit of AZ Winter=summer. Sooo....let me calculate this, that is nearly 30 months of summer in the past 3 years. WOw...I probably have 10 days of skiing in three years and probably close to 800 days on the bike. I guess that answers the question of which I prefer....or does it.

Plannin on stayin in NZ for a year. In 8months time there will be cold, full blown winter. Wet socks and defrosting the car windshield. But there will also be amazing backcountry POWDER days without a cloud in the sky. Funny how I am thinking of this now...on a beautiful sunny day gettin ready to head off into the backcountry on my bike. I guess I am just excited about the seasons again. Excited but also wondering if I can still handle winter

BMC Supertrail...mmmm mmmm supergood

Just posted this review up over at mtbr.com. No one had posted one for the BMC yet so I thought I would be the first.



Favorite Trail: the monster kaslo british columbia
Duration Product Used: 6 months
Price Paid: $5000.00
Purchased At: torquay cycle factor
Strengths: pretty light for how big it is. Mine sits right at 31 pounds. Good working suspension for havin fun blastin the downhills...goin up? just switch on the pro pedal and motor up the steepest, gnarliest climbs. This bike makes me smile. mounts for ISCG chainguide. STIFFF REAREND...i mean stiff. shortish headtube for a large size frame helps keep the bars low and the front tire weighted for cornering fast and climbin'. Geometry is SPOT ON. Low BB...likes cornerin'.
Weaknesses: not tons of standover on the large...sometimes the bike feels really tall with the fork all the way out to 160mm and the seat jacked up but I dont ride it in that config too often. When the fork is out the seat is usually down and vice versa.
Similar Products Used: Giant Reign X. Giant Reign. Jamis Dakar XLT
Bike Setup: fox talas RLC, Mavic Crosslines, avid juicy's, Truvativ NOIR cranks, XO der, SLX front, Joplin seatpost, 2.4 schwalbe nobby nics, thomson stemm
Bottom Line: Fun Bike! My ONE bike, I have others but always just reach for this one first. Loves the rockiest, rootiest trails and steep techy climbs too! I am 6'1, have to ride larges cuz I have really long legs but usually find mediums are more fun to ride. This bike has the geo (lil bit shorter top tube and long seat tube) that works for me...the bike fits me well and handles everything I can throw at it. I love it too because y north american buddies cant have one cuz they dont sell em there...ha ha

I love the you yangs

Wow. Just got back from a sweet 3 day trip down to Torquay, Victoria. I am livin in Cairns now which is at the top end of Oz and Torquay is at that...so it was a pretty big mission to get down there.

The highlight was definately riding the You Yangs, a mountain range that lies just west of Melbourne with mountain bike specific trails carved into the beautiful desert-like terrain. The trails are soooo flippin fun. Berms, jumps, rock gardens and sections of super smooth flowy singletrack abound. Everytime I ride there I impressed with the trail construction and how dedicated the builders are to keeping the area maintained.

I was riding my buddies Salsa Ala Carte Single speed. I kept the fork locked out nearly the entire time and it was super fun for trails like Cressy's. Cressy's Climb as it is named is much better if you descend it. This trail gives me the feeling I am in whistler riding Crank it up or even a mild A-Line. Its just full of berms, jumps, drops and fun high speed riding. On the hardtail with the fork locked out it was like being on mountain cross course. SOOO MUCH FUNNNN!

We spent about 2 & 1/2 hours out there and rode nearly 30k. Such a good time. Makes me realize how awesome the Melbourne, Torquay and Jan juc areas are. The entire SUrf Coast really. Such a special place....cant wait to go back....

a 3 month past due update

Woah...A lot has happened in three months. We went biking is some great areas and saw some amazing things. We journeyed the entire coast of Australia from West of Melbourne all the way to Cairns. We stopped for 6 weeks in Byron Bay...Meyranie had some work there for a bit and I bummed around and hung out with the crew from True Wheel Cycles in Mullumbimby...What a crew. I developed an addiction to Retro Mountain bikes...picked up a '90's circa Shogun. Got it all pimped for bicycle touring and some light duty mountain biking. I love it...it reminds me of being 12 again and tinkering in my dads garage for hours trying to get my cantilever brakes dialed in perfectly and polishing my bike with WD-40...boy you could make it shine!

Now we are in Cairns and plannin on sticking out the rest of our time in OZ here before we head to New Zealand. There is lots to do here; Check out Crocs on the Daintree, Snorkelin out at the Great Barrier Reef, Biking in the Atherton tablelands and around Cairns and just chillin and enjoying the perfect weather. This is definatley the warmest winter I have ever experience...hotter than arizona.

I have tons of pics categorized by month up on facebook so go check-check it:

Australia Oct 2008
Australia Nov 2008
Australia Dec 2008
Australia Jan 2009
Australia Feb 2009
Australia Mar 2009
Australia Apr 2009
Australia May 2009

The Cairns Mountain bike scene is pretty awesome. There is heaps of riding to do and always someone willing to go shred. I have an awesome lil downhill trail very close to my house, good urban rides on the commuter bike, crew that XC rides 6am tues and fri and a LONG ass shuttle-able DH track about 10mins drive from my house.

Also there are cool XC endurance races every month for the next 3 or 4 months. So good times abound in Australia.

COMMENCE RANTING - Now if everyone would get over the LOCAL SCHMOKEL crap I would be stoked. Seriously Australia, Canada employ's nearly half of the 18-22 year old Australian population in Whistler alone...your country is what it is because of tourism. If I read one more add in the newspaper or here someone else say "we only employ locals" I am gonna go POSTAL on that person. I have no time for the local attitude...no one is local...that is an illusion. Get yer head out of your ass...like anyone is gonna stay longer than 6 months at any of the shitty businesses around here anyway!! woah...okay...enough of that. I had a moment there. its over now and probably wont happen again so dont judge me based solely on that rant.

aight
Peace

2009 Otway Odyssey 100 kilometer mountain bike race

really hard. Harder than a solo 24 hour race I reckon. More of a RACEY vibe. The start of the race was soo amazing. 800 mountain bikers in a huge pack all cruisin up mountain roads with fat tires a buzzin. What a site (and sound).

The first half of the race was fireroad and quite a bit of hiking up some seriously steep hills as we made our way from Apollo Bay to the mountain bike trails of Forrest. It was pretty tough going but my voodoo Titanium 29er was just smoothly rollin up the road and firetrack hills with little effort on my part.

The second half of the race was mostly singletrack on some of Forrests best trails...starting off with RED CARPET and finishing with MARINERS RUN. What a blast. Would have loved to swith to my 6 inch travel Felt Compulsion at this point! My whole body was acheing from being on the hardtail for soo long and a long-legged and light bike would have been the perfect choice for finishing off the race. But that not being possible I kept on pushing trying to stay as smooth as I could. Ended up finishing out the race in the top 30 percentile in open class which I was pretty stoked about.

Next up the Buller Mountain Bike Festival and then the BMC 100 in the end of April.

more about the otway odyssey can be found on the torquay cycle factory website here

Peace
Monk