Learning to Fly

Mr Carl - on the farm!

I have a confession, I may not be the worst mountain biker in the world, but I'd probably make the short-list. I have shocking balance and an almost debilitating fear of edges. And yet, in late 2010, I talked Mr Carl into buying mountain bikes. My reasoning had nothing to do mountains, I wanted us to spend some time at my parents farm and I had an inkling that the idea might go over better with bikes involved!

Sand + Bike = Fun!

So Carl and I bought mountain bikes, Pitchy and Contessa. Pitchy is a tough beast, an all mountain, full suspension bike which looked decidedly out of place swerving through the red drift sand on the farm. Neither Carl or Pitchy were fans of the sand, especially when it jammed up his pedals and he kept falling over. I tried hard not to laugh as I coasted through the sand with Contessa, sneaker encased feet easily dealing with the swervy conditions. I pretty much continued laughing up until I received a quick lesson on the effectiveness of disc brakes, which resulted in me flying over the handle bars and through the air. Once I landed, I stood up, dusted myself off, and laughed some more. My love affair with Contessa had begun.

The start of something good

Still, we hadn't exactly done any mountain biking, more trail riding. Over the years I have tried to remedy this, with attempts to "mountain bike" through Fox Creek, however the fairly steep terrain combined with a fear of edges always made it difficult for me to really get the hang of it. Most of the time I'd end up gingerly picking my way along trails, envisioning tumbling down the mountain should I put one foot out of place.

 

Tunnel vision

We also spent a bit of time at Melrose, which for those of you who don't know is probably the mountain biking capital of South Australia. It was there I first got a hint of how much fun the mountain biking business could be! Although terrified of the trails on the mountains, I eventually managed to find a trail called 'Weaving Camels' which zigzagged back and forward over a creek bed. There were very few edges and I found I could actually ride this trail with some confidence and eventually a little bit of speed!

CX skills master!

But one trail three hours from home isn't really enough to develop any sort of skill or confidence with a mountain bike. So I was pretty keen when Mr Carl said he wanted to try out Cobblers Creek, a park that's about 10 minutes away that has recently undergone some trail development. The map even showed an easy trail, something which both Melrose and Fox Creek lacked. Mr Carl wanted to focus on his CX skills so decided to try it out on his CX bike, but I was keen to try Contessa on terrain she was designed for.

 

All smiles after the first run!

It was a miserable day when we decided to head out there, drizzly and overcast, but we were determined to go. The rain had reduced to a fine, misty drizzle by the time we arrived and actually stopped soon after we started riding. We decided to start on the easy track, however not knowing the area, we ended up riding up the most awesome downhill section ever! Ok, I might be over selling it, but for someone who has had so much difficultly trying to get comfortable mountain biking, when I see a track that I know I can actually ride with out stressing out I get really excited.

Happy trails . . .

 

Obviously, the next thing to do was to turn around and ride it the correct way! And it was so much fun! It swooped up and down a gently sloping creek bed, the trailed skillfully designed and built to allow even less skillful riders (me) to enjoy the flow of the trail. By the time we did our second lap down the easy track, I felt like I was flying!

. . . and scenic trails . . .

After getting the hang of the easy trail we decided to head up to the ruins that were marked on the map. It wasn't our original plan, but it turned out to be a good one with the trail up to the ruins a combination of fire track and single track. The steepness of the uphill was in some way negated by the trail design, which snaked it's way up the hill via a series of banked hairpins. 

. . . make for big grins!

These hairpins offered a great opportunity to practice some of the skills I'd read about but never really got the hang of, specifically the art of looking where you are riding! This may sound like common sense, but it's easy to focus on what's directly in front of the front wheel when riding, which restricts the riders ability to react to changing trail conditions. By looking further in front, say 5 to 10 m, you can easily anticipate changes and corners and ride more smoothly.

 

  

The view from the top

Bike skills development aside, it was still a hard slog to get up to the ruins, but the view was worth it. It was surprising to see just how close to suburbia we were, with houses and roads easily visible. Yet as soon as we headed back onto the single track, it felt like we were in the middle of the bush! 

Stormy skies stayed away

Houses and roads soon became the furthest thing from my mind as the single track turned downwards. Finally I got to make use of the full suspension my bike offered as Contessa and I bumped and skidded our way down the hill. My new found confidence meant that I didn't ride my brakes the whole way down and I was grinning like a cheshire cat when I finally caught Mr Carl at the base of the descent.

  

Not just a roadie!

I was keen to try it again, so Mr Carl and I headed back up. We tried to take a shortcut to the start of the descent, however we ended up walking up a rock garden! Still we made it and proceeded to swoop and weave our way down the hill, faster this time as we were more familiar with the trail. At the bottom, faced with the setting sun, we knew we had to head back, before we were locked in the park. Grins on our faces, we headed back and enjoyed one more ride through the easy trail on our way to the carpark. I had finally found my mountain biking legs!

Mountain Bikers!

Roller Frenzy Madness - The Bobs must be Crazy!

So what do you get when you put a whole pile of passionate cyclists in the back room of a pub with their own bar tender and a couple of rollers? Answer: Roller Frenzy!

How was your Friday night?

For those of you who are wondering what on earth I'm talking about, rollers are a form of bike trainer where the bike is placed on a set of cylinders in a frame, that rotate as you ride. Commonly the bike is free standing, that is not attached to the trainer, which means you need a certain amount of balance to use them. Suffice to say, if you ever need a laugh, google bikes on rollers and I suspect you will find numerous videos showing you exactly how not to ride them! Thankfully, in the interest of public safety, the front forks of the bikes were secured during the roller frenzy. I really didn't want to see the carnage that would result from me riding an unsecured bike on rollers!

Pecker Legs

Anyway, our club vice president had talked me into having a go, something about mid level women usually doing all right (flattery will get you everywhere!). The Boss of the Bobs (Rob Cannon) had also signed up, neither of us really having any idea what we were getting into. However we decided to get into the spirit of the event by kitting up in our Bob kit and have a bit of a race against each other. A polite request by the Boss resulted in us being paired up against each other for our qualifying round. However, for some reason we also became the first riders to go, and it was an eager crowd that lined up to cheers us on!

The Rikster vs Miss Wiss

Cannonball, aka Rob Cannon and I had worked out a plan for the evening. We were going to do our qualifying round, then get beaten in the first round so that we could sit down, have a meal and cheer our mates on. But first there was a bit of pride on the line - who was the fastest Bob?

Dark Destroyer

Apparently me! There were a few seconds in it, but I had beaten the Boss Bob! I had also quickly realised just how hard roller frenzy was going to be. No resistance meant that my legs were spinning like crazy and when the crowd is cheering you on, you just had to go flat out! Also, we couldn't see the dial so you really just had to pedal as fast as you could and hope that you would beat the other person.

Qualification out the way, we hobbled over to the bar, grabbed a coke, and parked ourselves in the beer garden to cool down. With 32 riders we were able to relax as everybody else did their qualifying ride, cheered on by the crowd. Soon we found up who we were up against in Round 1 - the Smiling Assassin for Rob and the Dark Destroyer for me. In case your wondering, we had to give ourselves nick names for the night and somewhat unimaginatively, I went by V.

Pain Face

With Cannonball again first rider up, I found myself on domestique duties! This mostly involved cheering very loudly and taking the bike when he was done, as he was mostly too busy coughing to carry it. Much to our surprise, Cannonball beat the Smiling Assassin on the line! Rob was having a bit of trouble following our plan, but I figured that I was likely to stick to it, as the Dark Destroyer was super fast. However, I hadn't counted on the expertise of the handicappers, nor the motivational effects of the crowd!

With everybody cheering loudly, I went flat out and due to an advantageous handicap, managed to hang on for the win! Rob and I laughed at each other for our inability to stick to our plan, who knew the Bob's had a competitive streak?

Wannahuckalugie

 
So after a bit of a break, we faced Round 2, Cannonball vs the Wannahuckalugie and V vs Sic Mic! As it turns out Sic Mic had a brand new bike (literally delivered that day) complete with pint holder! I figured such a dedicated cyclist would have my number and both Rob and I were looking forward to a bite to eat and a sit down, specifically one that didn't involve moving the legs! However it was not to be, with both of us getting through to the quarter finals! 

Sic Mic + pint holder

By this time, standing was becoming difficult and both of us looked like we were running out of steam. Cannonball was up against the Procrastinator and I was up against the Flash! If we both made it through this round we'd be facing off against each other in the semi finals!

The crowd roared as Cannonball lined up against the Procrastinator, legs ready, coughing kept to a bare minimum. Then they were off, heads down and legs flying! Some excellent handicapping once again rendered the decision a difficult one, but Cannonball was awarded the win! Rob C was through the semi finals!



Then it was my turn, and in my state of complete exhaustion I almost became the only person on the night to fall off the rollers! Thankfully some excellent guidance from my holder, David Miller, resulted in me starting the race semi-upright and on my bike.

I knew if I won this one the next round would be Bob vs Bob! The potential for drama was high as we got the starting signal and I powered my legs into action. The crowd cheered for both of us, but in the Flash pipped me at the post, ending my night, but on the bright side I could now have a cider! 

Deano cheering on Sheepstations (I think)

After a restorative cider, I resumed domestic duties, excited to be supporting a Bob in the Semi Finals! Even though I'm sure Cannonball was hoping to bow out this round, I couldn't help but hope he would beat the Flash, who had just beaten me.

The Flash

 


After a suitable break, I set up the Cannonball's bike on the rollers and positioned myself in prime cheering position. Head hung low from coughing, the Cannonball made his way onto the bike. The Flash was raring to go and I must admit, I thought it would be a hard ask for the Cannonball to take him. But Rob C is nothing if not stubborn (often to his detriment) and when they were told go, he pedaled his legs off! I cheered him on with the rallying cry of "Go Bob" and he just kept pedaling harder. Finally the race was done and he had won! The Cannonball had made it to the final!

The Cannonball . . . vs

 



This is where I may have lost the plot a little, laughing my head off as I collected his bike an congratulated him, because what I had been told is that the final would be raced over 1000m! That was double the distance we had been racing! There was Rob, doubled over, coughing his lungs out with me standing there laughing at the fact he would have to go on! The Bobs must be crazy!

. . . Deano

 

The final would be Port Adelaide favourite "Deano" vs Crazy "Cannonball" from the Bobs. Deano looked fit and raring to go, having taken out competitors such as Pecker Legs (who had beaten Anna Meares) and Sheep Stations, not to mention the fastest rider on the night, Rikster! Cannonball on the other hand, while having knocked off some quality competition, looked like he could barely stand and the compere was having trouble getting a word out of him between coughing fits! Still, I had seen him ride in worse conditions numerous times, so I wasn't going to give up on him yet.

  

The Final

Dutiful domestique, I placed his bike on the rollers, checking that all was well with the machine. Resuming my prime cheering position, I readied what was left of my voice for the final round. After one final cough they were given the start and they were off. Deano's legs spun like crazy as he tried to chase down the Cannonball. Rob C was going as hard as he could, but he was fading fast, his head almost moving more than his legs as he struggled to get the last ounce of speed from his exhausted body. In the last 150m, after much shouting and cheering, Deano caught the Cannonball and hung on to win Roller Frenzy V!

The Bobs had done themselves proud, with a hard fought 2nd place. Neither of us had anything left and I'm pretty sure I sacrificed my voice as well as my legs at this race! Congratulations to Deano for the win and many thanks to Port Adelaide Cycling Club and all the volunteers who helped put this race on, I'm looking forward to the next one!

In case you're still at a loss as to what I've been talking about, check out this short video compiled by the Dark Destroyer. Also, thanks to Mr Carl for providing the pictures for this blog post.

Chaos, Cakes and Cycling

Home sweet home!

I come from a fairly large family in this day and age, being the eldest of four girls, so when we all get together things can get a little chaotic. Which is essentially what happened over the Easter weekend when we all congregated on our parents farm to celebrate our first Easter with our new niece, Imogen. It was also her christening, and as I mentioned previously, I had volunteered to do a cake.

Looks can be deceiving

My sister had roughly described what she wanted, two square cakes one top of one another, with the top offset at 45 degrees. There was also mention of ribbon, blocks and pastels, but I figured we could work out the details when we came to putting it together. I did offer her a guarantee though, no matter what it looked like, the cake would taste good!

Tasted as good as it looks!

Before I get into the cake making story (you may want a cuppa, it's a bit of an epic), I just want to brag about my water melon growing skills, as one of the other things I was providing for our family feast was home grown water melon. 

Muscles!

Out of the four water melons that grew in our front yard this year, I brought the baby one home. The baby weighed in at 13.5kg, with the largest that we picked getting to 17.5kg! I have a lot of watermelon juice in my freezer now!

No need to stress

With the cake looming greatly in my mind, I had decided that I would try and get across to the farm before everyone else, so I could at least cook the cakes without commentary! All my sisters are excellent cooks, but only one of them actually cooks like me (chaotic, experimental and completely unable to follow a recipe). My other sisters actually follow recipes and one of them in particular always likes to remind me of the time where my compulsory taste testing resulted in the cake being half the size it ought to have been! Personally, I thought the problem was we followed the recipe!

The beginning . . .

Because I'm much more interested in flavour than looks, I'd decided to do each cake differently. I opted for a cherry ripe mudcake on the bottom and what started out as flourless hazelnut chocolate cake on the top. I wasn't sure of the ability of the flourless cake to hold the icing, so a small amount of flour was added to ensure it didn't collapse. Each cake was cut in half, spread with cherry jam and chocolate butter cream then stuck back together. Then we covered the whole lot in cherry jam and chocolate butter cream and proceeded with the dreaded icing!

. . . more flavour,

I say we because by the time I had the cakes ready for the jam, butter cream and icing I had serious help in the form of my very talented and artistic sister. I exhibited my best engineering skills to stick the cakes together and she very neatly made beautiful pastel coloured icing as well as rolling out pristine white icing. If I had done that we would have ended up with a multicoloured cake!

and perfectly iced.

Anyway, we got the icing on the cake without too much trouble, it even looked reasonably square! With that achieved we took the rest of the afternoon off to go fishing, reasoning we'd be back in plenty of time to finish organising the decorations. As luck would have it the fish were biting well past sundown, even the oysters were biting! My sister actually managed to hook one, stone and all! The problem was, it wouldn't let go!

Imogen's first blocks!

The enthusiastic fishing trip had put a bit of a dent in our plans to decorate and I think we were both a little worried about staying up until 2am decorating a cake! However we came home to an amazing surprise! Imogen's mother had painstakingly created beautiful building blocks from the coloured icing we had made earlier, then added white icing spelling Imogen's name. Absolutely stunning.  

Artistic Talent

Still, my other, wonderfully artistic sister couldn't help but add her own artistic contribution (you'd think that hooking an oyster would be enough awesomeness for one day) and made gorgeous flowers to compliment the blocks. I don't know why I was worried about decorating, I knew I wouldn't have to do it!

Elegant,

Finally we all got to be to get a little sleep before the christening and more importantly, the cake stacking and eating! The christening went well, Imogen was exceedingly patient as well as cute as a button! 
  

and Tasteful!

 


But finally it was time to stack the cake, except perhaps here is where I ought to point out I am not an engineer. As it turns out, I probably should have checked that the diagonal width of the smaller cake wasn't bigger then the width of the larger cake. So with cake stacking ending up as a big fail, we found another cake board, set up the cakes and were ready to go.

But they just don't stack!

About to go

Even though the cake stacking didn't quite turn out as planned, the cakes still looked magnificent and Imogen thoroughly enjoyed destroying her mothers handiwork. And, as promised, they tasted pretty good, and fed many people!

Leftovers!

The road I used to travel

Cake making and eating complete (well actually, we'd be eating cake for days to come), I decided I needed to stretch my legs and go for a ride. You didn't really think I'd go a whole post without mentioning bikes? I actually hadn't planned to ride, but at the last minute I'd thrown my cross bike in the car, just in case. It was worth it, I rode a route that I remembered driving along in the schoolbus as a kid. The cross bike is brilliant for dirt roads, though I did have to do a bit of walking in the sandier patches.

There's no place like home

 

I also managed to go for a ride with my Dad, on a bike I had fixed up for Mum for her birthday (kindly donated by my Aunty). Given that it was a bit of a clunker of a bike, I was very impressed with my Dad as he got it up to 20km/hr in places! Though he did complain about sore legs for the next couple of days.

It was good to get back to the farm, I always miss the wide open spaces and the clear skies. It was a good weekend, and I was proud to be part of the family effort to celebrate our new addition.

Open space and clear skies

Bouncing Bobs and Birthday Cake

Start with good ingredients ... 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

Recently my sister asked me if I could make a christening cake for my new niece, and of course I said yes! Any opportunity to make cake is a good one! However, this cake required decorating and as a scientist, I don't do "pretty" very well. But, I thought I ought to give it a go for my sister and therefore, I needed to practice!

Apply liberally ...  
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

 


I had a rough plan in my head what I wanted to do for the proper cake, but for practice I decided to make a double layer flour less hazelnut chocolate cake. Except I couldn't find hazelnut meal, so I used almond meal. And I wasn't confident of the cake holding up, so I might have added a quarter cup of flour. So maybe it could be called a mostly flour less chocolate almond cake! The scientist in me loves a good experiment.

Dust ... 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

The cakes were made (seriously, this was the easiest part of the whole process) and ready to be decorated. I'd read somewhere that you can attach fondant icing to a cake by covering the cake in melted jam or butter cream. As I really wanted the fondant to stay put, I used both! I also used cherry jam and chocolate butter cream between the two cakes. One very important lesson learnt here was that cakes should be trimmed and squared prior to putting a layer between them. Let's just say things started to get messy from this point onwards. 

Smother ... 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

The next step in the process was to cover the whole thing in that awful white icing. I maintain my stance on that icing, it tastes awful and detracts from a beautiful tasting cake, but it is what is used to decorate, so I thought I'd give it a go. Driven by my desire to reduce the impact of the icing as much as possible, I had rolled it quite thin, which as I found out, was a bad idea. The fondant seemed to dry and crack, and while we got it over the cake, the corners were a bit on the messy side.

Layer ... 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

Still, the icing had one advantage, I could use it to cover up these errors. Carl decided to join me at this stage as we tried out some some different icing dyes. Soon both our hands and the bench were multicoloured and there was icing sugar everywhere! But we did have a pile of different coloured fondants, and Carl was soon crafting letters to decorate the cake. Meanwhile I was crafting what I thought of as "racing stripes" to cover the corners!


As it turned out, Carl and I were due to race (in a completely non-competitive manner) the next day and had decided to take the cake with us to share. We had decided to decorate the cake in honour of the 5 Bobs, who I race with. This turned out to be a brilliant stroke of genius as one of the Bobs was having his birthday over the weekend!  

And begin to decorate! 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

Cake in tow, the next day we headed up to Bird in Hand winery to participate in Port Adelaide Cycling Club's second Pyscho Sportiff of the season. The course would definitely live up to it's name, with two sections of gravel road and some nasty hills. But there would be coffee, cake and sausages after!

Cover ... 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

The Bobs had planned a team of six, however our resident hard man, Chewie, had decided to take a well earned rest. The day before he had just completed the Ride for Repat, a 7 day, 930km fundraising ride for the Repatriation General Hospital in Adelaide. Have to say a big congratulations to him for completing this ride successfully for the second time.

... and voilà - Birthday Cake! 
(photo c/ Carl Purczel)

That left 5 Bobs, well actually, 2 Bobs, Brett, David and myself, but we all count as Bobs. I was Captain on the road, which turned out to be a good idea when our actual team captain, Rob Cannon had to pull out after one lap due to a sore back. But this was all to come and prior to the start I waved the cake under everybody's noses as motivation for a strong race. Personally, I think I need to come up with new motivation as I think most of the Bobs, including me, were feeling pretty second hand for one reason or another.

Still we lined up, with Recon Bob 1 (David) leading us out so we didn't get lost immediately (or detour up to the winery). David had previously provided us with quite a detailed route breakdown, however all I remembered was the word hills, and I was pleasantly surprised when the road to the first turn seemed fairly reserved in the up department. 
 
This wasn't to last. Directly after the first turn the road headed up and it was here that I discovered just how poorly riding my recent mountain biking adventures had prepared me for road racing. I also regretted not being able to get on my road bike prior to the race as I struggled to remember how the gears worked. Not the best thing heading up a hill.

Ready to Roll 
(photo c/ Tina's Cycling Photos)

Apparently I wasn't the only one struggling, though I sure couldn't tell at the time. Both Brett and Rob W flew up the hill, dancing on the pedals and in Brett's case, swinging that suitcase he calls a saddle bag from side to side! Soon I was yelling at them, telling them to come back and push the rest of us up if they had that much energy!

We made it up the first couple of hills and managed to stay together fairly well. Our second turn for the day put us on a scenic gravel road, however there was no time for photos! The road soon headed back up and the gravel added an extra dimension to the climb. It was necessary to gasp for breath and watch where you were going at the same time, it's amazing I remember to turn the pedals!

It was at this point in time that the Boss, Rob C, started realising that maybe a dodgy back and bumpy dirt roads weren't the best combination. Soon he was twisting this way and that in the saddle, trying to ease his discomfort as he valiantly struggled on. We kept an eye on him and it was soon decided that the Boss would not be accompanying us for our second lap.

Starting to head up 
(photo c/ Tina's Cycling Photos)

The gravel ended without us having any major mishaps (a lot of teams seemed to be having all sorts of trouble on this section) and we turned onto a flying down hill. I think we were all grinning as we hit speeds in the order of 50km/hr heading down the hill. What we didn't know at the time was that we had to turn left onto more gravel about halfway down the hill! After some careful braking we all made it around the corner and onto the pot luck pootle!

Actually, it was fairly difficult to pootle down this seriously potholed road, the gradient meant you ended up picking up speed and trying to dodge pot holes all at the same time. I wasn't all that successful at this and I coped some fairly heavy blows along this section, but at least I remained upright. I think the boys also took a bit of a beating, though I think the Boss pulled out all his mountain biking skills and missed them all! It was ridiculously fun though, something about flying down a slightly sketchy road trying to dodge hazards just makes me grin!

Powering down the finishing straight!
(photo c/ Tina's Cycling Photos)

This put us on the home straight, so we went into the big chain ring and powered home. Rob W wasn't all that keen on another lap, however he decided to stick with us as we dropped the Boss off and headed out for another pounding. It was more of the same, however a few mechanicals challenged us with David's chain dropping off a couple of times and my bike getting stuck in the big chain ring halfway up one of the major hills. Suffice to say, I plan to have words with my bike.



We made it back to the finish, narrowly avoiding being taken out by a caravan that decided it required the whole of the dirt road. Garmins switched off, we proceeded to consume coffee and sausages as we waited for everyone else to finish.

Once everyone was in, envelopes of recognition were handed out, as well as a few bottles of wine. We'd let slip to club president, Marky G, that Rob W was having a birthday, so everyone sang happy birthday. This seemed a fair exchange for a piece of cake! I was pleased to have a lineup of people wanting cake and from the feed back I received, it sounded like it was a winner!

The day was nicely rounded out with coffee at the Bird in Hand winery, overlooking the vines, followed by some wine tasting. Any race is awesome that ends in wine!

A big thanks to everybody who helps host these events, without the volunteers, none of us would get a chance to have this much fun! Now, onto the Christening Cake!

Ah, the serenity (photo c/ Carl Purczel)

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