Category Archives: Uncategorized

Convict 100 MTB race 2016

Photos from my latest Mountain Bike race, the Convict 100, so called as its along the old convict trails carved out and made by the old convicts. I raced with mate Ian, we camped right next to the river in St Albans.image

image

I didn’t take my phone on the race but here my notes:

  • Long uphill at the beginning was a killer. Ian struggled due to him getting over a Flu 3 days before the race. Was so steep had to walk up several parts.
  • The Kayak river crossing wasn’t as scary as I thought.
  • Middle section had a great rocky (rock garden) long section across high ridges with lots of fog either side looking into the valleys, was beautiful.
  • Long downhill towards the end gave the bikes a real hard pounding before finishing on a long fast tarmac section. Ian drafted me to keep up the high speed despite battling leg cramps.

Course map:Convict68km-Course-Map_LR

Course profile:68km-profile_FinalThe kayak bridge:convict 100 kayack bridge

We finished the 68km offroad loop in 3:32. We placed 15th in our age category and 45th in the whole race. I think if it wasn’t for Ian’s Flu symptoms we would have done about 20 mins faster and finished in top 10 overall and maybe top in our age category.

image

image

image

After the race at the St Albans Settlers Arms pub for a well earned beer and some hearty hot vegetable soup.

image

image

Ibis Mojo SL still going strong

2011

Ibis Mojo SL in 2011

2016, can you spot the differences?Ibis Mojo SL in 2016

My Ibis Mojo Mountain Bike is 5 years old this April. Still going strong. Although its got 26″ wheels and the standard for mountain bikes is 27.5″ or 29″ now its still an incredible all terrain bike that takes all the punishment I can throw at it.

Put it this way the bike is a lot more robust than me, I always come off worse in a crash 🙂

Its had a few upgrades over the 5 years, swapping all the gears and pedals from Shimano XT to the top of the line XTR range to make it lighter and stronger, swapping the saddle for a super light (and uncomfortable at first) one and adding some lights for the commute to work and back. A MASSIVE improvement was a brake upgrade from the original Avid Juicy carbons to Shimano XTR, this was Ian’s advice. Wow, such an improvement in strength and feel. It feels like I have the accuracy to stop on a 50c piece now.

The best thing about owning an Ibis is as they are a low volume hand made bike by a bunch of mountain biking dudes in the US, is just how rare they are. A couple of times a month fellow riders who know how rare and high-end they are, stop me to ask what its like to ride and generally ask about the bike and say they never see them, I have to agree.

I myself have only seen, I think I could count 5 in the the 5 years I’ve owned one, 1 a year. Its nice owning something so rare and respected by fellow riders and something not costing the earth like a very fancy watch.

I hope to keep hold of this little gem of a bike for at least another couple of years.

March 2016 Lotus club drive to Thredbo

March 2016 Lotus club drive to Thredbo – mountainous driving at its best. The Sydneysiders meet up for the journey down.

image

Lunch at Brumbys schnapps restaurant.

image

Arrived at Thredbo with the beautiful mountains all around.

image

The main day of alpine driving starts with a photo of all the cars at Dead Horse Gap.

image

All the guys taking photos of the Lotus spectacle

image

Driver briefing before we head off on our days alpine drive.

image

I didn’t get any other photos of the day, but it was around 500km’s of very fast and the best fun driving I think I’ve ever had. A loop through all the Alpine regions best roads. I do have some videos though, here’s though the tighter twisty mountains:

Stopping at the top of one of the mountains, note the Black Elise got a bad puncture, we were all looking to help.

Driving across the higher ridges with all the dead tree’s

After a good night out at the Black Bear German restaurant and a good night’s sleep, we’re all off again.

image

My co driver Ian with my Lotus club nickname on the roof.

image

On the way home we stopped at the same old wooden bridge I took the photo of my RS4 4 years ago.

image

Porsche 911 (991) gen 2 launch party

I was invited by friend Courtney on 3rd March to the Australian launch of the new Porsche 911 (991) generation 2 launch party. Interesting technically as now Porsche has switched ALL their 911 models to use turbocharging, something the purists are not so happy with.Porsche 911(991) gen2 under cover

After some videos about innovation and building on the past and some puffs of smoke, the new car was unveiled, and I was impressed.

Porsche 911(991) gen2 Mark impressed

Group shot with Big Cam, Courtney and Brad, the guy on the far left was Courtney’s friend which i cant remember his name.Porsche 911(991) gen2 group shot

NYE 2015/2016 at Lake Conjola

image

This year we wanted to go away from Sydney for NYE to escape the bonkers crowds. We went to Sanna’s mums new holiday home which has just finished being built.

Friends that came were Troy & Ali, Sam & Brendon and Steve.

It wouldn’t be NYE in Australia without a barbie mate!

image

Here’s NYE celebrations in the bush!

image

image

New Years day there was a lot of lazing around, Troy and I nursing hangovers, and a bit of Cricket Monopoly for those who’s brains worked.

image

image

image

January the 2nd we walked out to Green Island which is only accessible across a sandy/rocky stretch at low tide.

image

image

image

Steve here was battling to get a stable temperature in Sanna’s mums new Wood fired pizza oven.

image

Troy and I invented the 5cm high ‘Volcano meat lovers pizza’.

image

Wood cooked pizza had a real smoky smell to it

image

Time to leave and the locals came to say goodbye.

image

New Lotus Elise

I’m lucky to have bought my 3rd Lotus 2 months ago, just haven’t remembered to put some photos up. After my old Blue 2007 Elise R and my brief ownership of a Black 2007 Exige S, this one is a Daytona Blue 2015 Elise S Club Racer.

image

Here we are picking up the new car, how exciting to unwrap a new car, very exciting and very lucky we are.

image

All shiny and new and so Blue looking.

image

This is the current quickest Elise model with a mid mounted1.8 litre supercharged Toyota engine. Power is  approx 260hp which isn’t a huge amount, (my Audi has 420hp) but weighing about 900kg’s it has a very quick acceleration of 0-100kph (0-60mph) in around 4.3 seconds.

image

The Daytona Blue paint looks quiet different in person to the photos, it is kind of a half matt/half shiny look. The colour receives a lot of compliments from passers by. We were going to go for Red but chose the Blue as soon as we saw it in the showroom.

image

image

image

Sanna and I are both very happy to own a Lotus again. They are a really fun car. THey can be a bit expensive to buy but after the inital purchase they are very cheap for petrol due to the small engine, and the parts are quite cheap, servicing is just a little bit more than a everyday car.

image

image

Thanks to my mum for the ‘Petrol head’ t-shirt 🙂 suits me.

image

As you can see the Elise is a real hit with friends kids 🙂

image

image

image

Now if only my friend Cam could sit in the car, he’s so tall he can’t even see out haha.

image

Sanna and I look forwards to some Lotus driving adventures before the baby comes early Feb.