Firstly let me just say that I realise this isn’t a travel blog and I know that if you wanted to find out about some self-important westerner’s experiences travelling in Asia you would be probably be visiting sites like this instead as it provides lots of helpful information for westerners travelling in Tokyo such as where to find places like “Hardrock Café…Starbucks and McDonalds”. Personally, I think this kind of information is a bit redundant as you could easily show somebody where to find a McDonalds with a very simple graphic: Anyway, I’m currently staying in Japan for a few months so I don’t really have much else to write about… …sorry… …so here’s the self-important-travel-blog-write-up. The first thing you notice when you arrive in Japan (after the free health check at the airport) is how respectful everybody is: • The Japanese respect floors – shoes are removed when entering most buildings (and some trains). • The Japanese respect food – it is packaged well (perhaps too well) and eaten in many small portions so as to appreciate the many subtle flavours. • The Japanese respect tourists – unlike some other Asian countries, tourists in Japan do not need to … Continue reading →

It’s quite unusual to compete in a race in your home country yet still find yourself part of an ethnic minority. For a team of riders based in Fitzroy though, referring to Far North Queensland as our home country is a bit of a stretch. Aside from the fact that they both accept colourful plastic money, Fitzroy and Far North Queensland have about as much in common as a Macchiato and a Frapuccino. In this year’s 17th Crocodile Trophy, there were probably more Aussies competing than ever before – I counted 21 including Fitzroy Revolution team members (clockwise from top-left): 1. Samuel “The Babysitter” McGregor 2. Matthias “The Sauerkraut” Schwarze 3. Your humble writer 4. And our spiritual leader, Carl “Telling it like it is” Maroney ANY CHARACTER HERE It’s at this point that you may be wondering if this is a story about some kind of weird fancy dress party that was themed as Angry/Sci-fi/Blackface/Pornstar. But no, I can assure you that this is what people actually looked like during the Crocodile Trophy. Other Aussies included three of the Subaru Marathon MTB guys from Sydney and Melbourne hard man Brad “The Euro Whisperer” Davies. Brad had a great knack … Continue reading →

Hurley and I are both going to be racing the Victorian Christmas Carnivals this year, starting with Horsham on the 27th and finishing in Wangaratta on the 30th, with Bendigo and Shepparton in between. It’ll be a fun four days, with lots of handicaps, scratch races, heckling and the ensuing shenanigans.

Saddle sores aren’t my friends, but we reluctantly catch up every now & then. From what I understand saddle sores come from infection of abrasions of the skin. These little cuts are caused from friction between skin and the chammy. If your saddle is too high you’ll rock n roll your hips in order to reach your pedals every stroke, effectively grinding your gooch to the next life. If your saddle or knicks don’t fit properly this will give you trouble! Any event that requires a lot of high stress efforts or grinding that leads to “pig rooting” the bike is going to induce more friction on the contact point. The twisting involved in a sling combined with force on the saddle around corners make madisons the most taxing event I’ve experienced on the gooch. The damp, warm chammy area makes for good conditions for bacteria to flourish. So you’ve got the right shorts, you’ve been fitted, & you’ve found the saddle that works for you. Sweet! Now, time to get a procedure down. Hygiene stops saddle sores. Keep that sucker clean! Make sure you’re clean before you put kit on, and get out of that kit & shower as … Continue reading →

It’s a nice luxury to be able to ride during business hours…but it definitely makes me lazy. I should have realised that today’s ride wasn’t going to be very productive when the already generous start time of “9am at Atomica Caffe” was pushed back to 10am. Many of my friends who work full-time are forced to train early on weekday mornings and they seem to easily get in to the habit of waking up before sunrise and heading out in the cold to get their required km’s in. It seems that even on weekends, when they don’t need to be at the office by 9am, they are always still keen to head out early because it has become a habit. For me, having the time to ride during the day has only caused me to develop two habits – sleeping in and drinking coffee before rides. Today I was riding with Mark (or if you prefer, Sando, or possibly ‘The Colonel’) and we began the day with a couple of games of backgammon at the café. Backgammon is a great way to warm up before a road ride as it gets the mind ticking over but keeps the heartrate generally … Continue reading →

The Tuesday morning Mount Pleasant Loop is a nice 2 hour road ride that takes in a few hills around the Viewbank/Eltham/Research area of Melbourne. Starting and finishing in Clifton Hill between 7-9am, it is a great way to wake the body up on a weekday morning. This week I headed out with the Fitzroy Revolution’s own Sam McGregor – you might recognise him from Cycling Central’s recent coverage of the Crocodile Trophy – he was the one wearing the white armskins and the casual eyewear. Anyway, I’ll write some more about the Crocodile Trophy next week but back to the Mount Pleasant loop… Despite having done this ride countless times, this week, for some reason, I was struck by how many Speed Bumps, Speed Humps and Speed Tables that this ride takes in. Today I counted 18 Speed Bumps/Humps (or “Judder Bars” for any kiwi listeners out there) and 3 Speed Tables (Road Mesas or Traffic Platforms) – I’m really not sure how to label them but I guess that they can all be broadly categorised under the Paul Sherwen umbrella term of “Road Furniture”. For those of you who are interested (and I know that some of you … Continue reading →