Busting out

My wife went on a training course and I was to meet her in the hotel lobby. It was raining and I wanted to get out of the rain. I rolled down my cycle mode shorts into pants and rolled my short sleeve jacket into a respectable soft shell. I made sure I had ridden slow enough to not get the dreaded water splatter along the butt seam of my pants and back. I sat down and realised that the lobby probably never looked as good.

Also, Shifty who was very important in the creation of the event that was CMWC 06 that was of course the best ever event of its kind .. yeah ever and in the future too. Anyway, Shifty left the city of Sydney with a rounding of the troops to wish Sifty a great farewell. I have pictures of him crying and it was not in pain.. or even self inflicted pain. He is now scaring the drivers and pedestrians of BrisVegas..yep he is crying in this pic. (Shifty in green)

The SYDBMA is holding the Courier Cup...the fastest over 2 events will get free return tickets to ACMC in Perth over the Easter long weekend

Last month my son turned 4. He fetured on my friend ohoh2's blog ... Those kids had a suprize visitor in the shape of SPIDERMAN. All the little girls were scared and all the little boys loved it.
SpiderMan towards the end of his routine made all the kids swords out of balloons. He then somehow managed to get them to beat me up with them. After standing in front of a BBQ and making enough sausages and fish to fedd an army I really did not feel like being pushed about by a squad of malicious balloon wielders. My son's friend Oscar was a little out of order when he started to punch me in the nose no less than 4 times then run off (stage left) fast. He hit me in the face on 2 different occasions and also started to lay into my gut on another. Lil bugger was hitting hard. How does a 4 year old learn that? I was wondering about approaching his dad who did the dump and run thing. Bahhhh later.

There are some things I really like. One of them is bikes and girls who ride them. You might have noticed that I often have a pic or 4 of a lady on my bike. Well I have some more now too. I would like to mention that I got my inspiration from TC from fyxomatosis. A few years ago i got a postcard info flyer of his exhhibit CIAO! I was hooked. I do not pretend to compete or even come close to the quality of his art but I dream too. Have a look at his site,well travelled in the bicycle courier world. Andy White (Track Cunt) has made the bike THE art form itself.

My attempt to be less "Still Life" and more "in the street". I wish I had the equipment.. sigh.

Speaking of photographers. My friend Peter's site is constantly being bombarded with hack attacks and other malicious net beasites.... What the real problem about that is Google black lists it and makes it hard to even view a picture. with its MALICIOUS warnings on sites that might have been hacked but are now fixed. It is like the warning is the virus. Also, who let google warn you with a big stick... Google did that's who. It's not really very fair. We are building him a new site with a new IP. So perhaps Google can just piss off.

Over the last few weeks I have met a fewNICE GUYS some of them were even riding fixies. The guy on the right was from the States and his bike had really lovely lugs I might be wrong but the badge on the head tube said ARAYA. Now as far as I knew they built rims and wheels in alloy. The badge did actually look just like the old PANASONIC head tube badge that looked like it would be more at home as a ring on some big guys finger. If you're into head badges look at this (just found it randomly).

The bike in question is the red one on the right it has mud guards and a nice easy ratio. what I really noticed ws the great lugs. I was really weirded out becuase the lugs looked a bit like a Colnago Arabesque (take a look at the unpainted pic on the left).
Also I managed to find more info that Araya did infact build bikes. But, I still dont see Japanese frame makers of the era taking the time on their lugs.

Also met a few more Sydney riders who once again prove that its not the bike but the ride.



Christian Carter on a bigger gear than me and no clips or cages... doing it fixed on platforms.. like the cool kids in France....




John Remi on his Elsworth with road slicks. He was commuting on a Sunday and was really happy to stop and say hello. Nice bike mate. How bout you come with us and put some fat rubber on that sucker?

Pete McDonald Pete McDonald Pete McDonald Pete McDonald Pete McDonald Pete McDonald Pete McDonald Pete McDonald Pete McDonald Pete McDonald Pete McDonald Pete McDonald

how cool

"Two guys who race full-time for one of the biggest teams in the world - it's amazing I got across the line ahead of them. I don't know what to think," McDonald said.

http://player.sbs.com.au/cycling#/cycling_08/race_highlights/race_highli...

We all know Pete "chuck a wheelie" McDonald. Well he just beat a few world class riders and at the same time managed to out sprint 2 team Columbia riders.

IN the above link you can see and hear Mr Rodgers say how he was the strongest rider out there but OBVIOUSLY that was ego because Pete beat him and his team mate to the line with his sprinting prowess.

Congrats Pete and keep on annoying them man.

I was sitting at Martin place GPO and Pete was working for the call. I see him and he slows to say hi. CHUCK A WHEELIE PETE., i say and he pops one up and falls directly to the the ground sideways... we all laugh .. thanks pete.

Always a good sport and always a fine gent.

more here

video: http://player.sbs.com.au/cycling#/cycling_08/race_highlights/race_highli...

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,20797,24898474-23218,00.html?from=pu...
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/01/11/1231608523723.html?feed=fairfa...
http://cyclingtipsblog.com/2009/01/australian-nationals-road-race-tips/
http://www.bicycle.net/2009/team-type-1s-wilson-fifth-at-australian-road...

MICHAEL Rogers and Adam Hansen, two of the biggest names in Australian cycling, admit they barely knew who Peter McDonald was before yesterday's national road race championship. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24899549-2863,00.html

There has been a lot of info in the media about bikes... They out sold cars Again and then infrastructure debate is revving up and people are getting their old rattlers out of the garage and riding to work... Petrol is cheaper and still the bikes come out. GOOD ISN'T IT?

Here is my favorite photo subject matter .. My Bike.
Hope you enjoy the pics.

I know MATT is a follower of my pics of my bike, and these are for you.

Beatrice (left) is a French Teacher in Singapore, she is really a groovy chicka. An amazing smile and a very smart conversationalist. and very high NATURAL BEAUTY level.


Hanna (right) From Perth was just sick of sitting on the bus that broke down just near Federation way. Behind those glasses is an very amazing set of eyes. Very defined and brown.

The Harrajuku impressionist is also from Perth and on holidays with a guy from Perth. I have forgotten her name but when I spoke to them I asked about the outfit. She told me there is group of us (them) in Perth who get about like they Belong at the HARAJUKU GATE. Its called COSPLAY and that COSPLAY is what inspires them. HOW COOL!

(link to someone elses blog and amazingly the pictures are similar to my travel blog wrird huh?)

Riding about the CBD and inner west and inner east has been a real different vibe this week. It feels sleepy like Sundays but all the shops are open and the ties are at their desks.

I reckon we have 2 weeks till we know if we need to stock up on Baked Beans and Water and the banks wont open OR everything will be OK.

Finally and without DELAY the last two images are MEGAN. Megan rides a beautiful road bike and likes to ride with the guys. Recently She has become single and If there are any good guys out there who wanna date... hmmm I take bribes.

Megan works in the shop on some weekends and likes a chat about not girls stuff.

Yet another great bunch of art from FYXOMATOSIS

http://www.fyxomatosis.com/gallery.php?gal=30#709

sometimes bikes and girls cross paths in the most sensational way.

AT&T are headed to release the OS SYMBIAN for its handsets. (if your asking about Australia "WHO CARES".. until anything happens here and it won't its best to keep an eye on what is really happening in the werld of telecommunications).
A possible slap in the face to the number of IPhones using the Apple and perhaps a competitor to Googles Android that was released as open source a few months ago. Will Apple release it's IPone platform to the public giving it a much needed user side.

Symbian has been used for some time on a variety of popular international phones, including Nokia's own S60 line and phones from Sony Ericsson. With this acquisition of the entire platform, though, Nokia plans to open source Symbian, making it a much more service-agnostic choice for AT&T versus Android, Google's open source mobile phone OS. Android had developmental help from a variety of hardware manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, and LG, and already offers advanced functionality like the application marketplace. But Google's OS has been criticized by some carriers and manufacturers as being too Google-centric, tying too closely into services like Gmail and Google contact syncing.

Also

Nokia responds to the projected drop in handset demand by effectively ceasing its efforts to penetrate the Japanese market... or, rather, what's left of the Japanese market.

Windows Mobile has become 42.9 % more popular.

meanwhile my son wants to play flash games fro the nickelodeon site and forces me off the computer. I am considering buying him a glorified communication device in the form of an eeePC. I can buy one locally for about 50 to 700 bucks , powered by possibly the better CPU in current release the ATOM from Intel. They are WiFi ready , have bluetooth but somehow miss the 3G connection to get on the phone line. many of them have web cams and so this makes them ready for SKYPE or social networking.. If your a geek and your not up to speed on this ... Your not a geek.

I went to a handfull of local mobile phone providers of hardware and service and of the approximately 20 service staff that claim to know something only ONE of them knew of ANDROID in any form. ... what is ANDROID? i t is an open source mobile phone opperating system. And there are LOTS of apps being made for it every day.

So is the mobile phone becoming a multi media device or is the multimedia device becoming super portable?

I have become addicted to the BLOOD series of mini games on facebook. It has basically cured me of a long passion I have with RPG genre. I used to spend hours killing trolls and shadow warriors and the like in EverQuest and everquest 2 then I went to AoC and even tried WoW. but was soo pissed off that they claim that they cant do stuff cause it resembles real life then around christmass you find snowball and candy canes to waste slots in your inventory. Did it make me mad. Yes , especially when they are the reason why they did not do stuff cause it was to REAL LIFE. the ad Christmas trees (only cause they are so NOT real life... what crap is that?).

Celibrating real life holliday occasions and events in a fantasy game is just trying to butter both sides of your bread... but where do you hold on to it without getting butter on your fingers?

Second Life is dead (not quite)..... I tried it 2 times and both times it was a waste of my time. The learning curve was steep but its flaw was also one of its charms. the fact that there was Telstra badges on my start up location was almost like having cops standing in the corners at a rave... it just does not work. especially when like in WoW, the more experienced users "grief" the noobs, so do the older users of secondlife dish out how basic you are in your 2nd hour... makes the whole thing a waste of time and unfriendly..... perhaps if I could just find an OS server instead of the telstra one.

Griefers are bullies .. end of story.

Star Wars: the old republic is being taken on by BioWare... this has surly have to be a good thing

Death Penalty ....


not the real life one but when your CHAR DIES... here is a mouthfull of crap we dont need explained about EVE. Eve is a great game but seriously it get really booring if you do one to many missions... I was in a bunch of great corporations (guilds) but now that my last one has disbanded im bored... VERY bored.. oh was that MY Account that lapsed.. im sorry... but my muninn and broadsword sits in a proverbial black home until i bother to re start my account.
I have been having the hardest time finding a pice of space that was right for me.... I just became bored... the most exciting thing to happen was a vlob of reds not see me as I was on the gate they came through... must have been a blob of about 130 ships or so.... exciting but no one was close enough to "de cloak" me.

Also I find the idea of having to pre-book for fleet battle 2 things.
firstly its a cry for help to secure the diminishing nuber of seats required to actually have a fleet.
and secondly it takes away the impromptu of the MMO. I play MMO cause there is a certain level of randomness.. In my life at the moment somethings I cant BOOK to fight... I must fight now or l just log off.

Although I am quite tired of EVE it has one thing that is great... ONE SERVER... this ONE server model is great.. cause all your frinds and enemies will eventually log on to the same server.

found this .. interesting but it not me.. this might be...
http://www.massively.com/2008/07/21/eve-evolved-suicide-ganking-investigated/


I am an avid hater of WOW. I hate the kids and I hate the rubbish that you need to put up with.. I hate competing egos over coffee and I hate the fact that it takes an idiot to play the game. Once upon a time before class leveling MMO games where actually fun because you needed a wizard or you needed a priest or you needed a warrior... now its all leveled. WOW is leveled, EverQuest is definately class leveled and it was even wound back to make it easy for people who don't want to read the maual or think its to hard for a druid to fight past a gate... get a life.. its a game... wait for someone to help you.. not just complain. Wow won the MMO game between itself and everquest by making the system requirements to be LOW as opposed to the uber machine required to play EverQuest. Essentially the games are more similar now than when they where conceived. Wow is better hands down but it still looks like a cartoon whilst everquest is truly imersive.

Age Of Conan has come between them to give easy game play, quick leveling and a variety of leveled classes and a cool char generation. I have stope playing lady characters and now only play men. I was lucky in AoC as it was true (since fixed) that female chars did not hit as hard... War Hammer is now the flavour of the month.

I can't figure out what makes me angrier: my habit of anonymously trolling web. forums, or my video game playing.

this statement is kinda the ultimate bored web user.. somehow I empathize TOTALLY. grab a visual here full story here

.A new Bike Messenger photographic slash artistic site.

I have serious travel plans for 2009, culminating with the World Championships in September. Big dreams that need real funds. To help finance my trips, I will be launching a series of online raffles. I’ve organized lotteries before and they have always proven to be highly successful.

Not only will I be giving away large format limited edition prints, I also have some sponsors who are joining in and donating some products and gift certificates. I think there will be some really sweet prizes up for grabs.

stay tuned, all the official info will be online by this weekend.

Now when couriers complain about the weather in Sydney. Hmmm. You know not to listen.

to my friends on this special day. Hope you have a better one than this vegie

you know how and you know where.

come and dress like a pirate all day for bonus points.
bring all your pirate gear for time bonuses.
Find Dan for more info.
I wont be there as I have found out by looking at my calander that I am booked to look after my kids from 5.30 till they go to sleep...

Arghhhhh, Dam nations... In a prior life I was working on tall ships.. they are very majestic, even the dogs.
todays wordle

whats this then??? A Fashion Show.. looks very flash.
Tell em Yogi sent ya!!!

(have a stab at the image for a bigger look)

I tell you.
The latest craze is giving me the shits.

I do ride a Fixie and I enjoy it. There are plenty of reasons not to ride my fixie and I sometimes ride other bikes too, as I have a range of a few bikes I can ride given the ride, weather and terrain.

I have a head turning fixie with a very hard gear ratio. I was always a spin up and push kinda guy, rearly did I sit but I would lean on my saddle. most of my weight was always on my pedals.

I am no longer young or cool or in fashion. I don't try to dress like anyone. I just get up and do my thing and get dressed.

2 days ago a message arrived in my IN BOX and it was from a journalist. They wanted info on "why are fixies so popular".

I really am not the best person to ask. I have a little spoke card that says FIXIES SUCK. I ride one too, and I enjoy it. Please don't forget my other bikes.

The journalist was asking the same basic questions as the previous Jurno asked. The jurno then said that they got a Trek Single Speed, for the article. As far as I know, and that is limited to what I see, I had the idea that Fixed gear bikes have their appeal because of the "basic-ness" of them, the cool in the ride and the feeling of nothing making a rattle sound and feeling attached. This all comes with the riders personalised position, set up and bits. After all there should not be to many bits to a fixie. A real fixie might treat a bike like trash, but you could call that artistic expression and style.

I just find the whole idea of fixed gear bikes on the general market interesting.

Bike messengers are possibly the hardest people you will meet in your urban sprawl, And possibly the hardest working versus how much they actually get for any one job they do.

They have been left unprotected by the law in relation to rights they have on the road (in my city anyway as it is in MOST others). HOWEVER, they are mimicked even to destruction. Everyone wants to look as cool as a Bike Courier. The free life outdoors.

Bike messengers ride fixies cause they want to. There is no reason why they cant. But I warn you budding noobies and fakengers. Riding a fixie is not for the feint of heart.

My neighbour who jumped on my bike made almost a whole 2 pedal strokes before he fell off. yep he tried to stop and paniced. Over the bars he was thrown. Quite funny but pending law suit is what I saw in mid air when everything just stopped. If I could just hit the rewind key and bend his knee. But to my amazment he neglected to let go so he landed on his back and not his face.

Fixies are for those who can do it. When asked by the jurno over the phone interview, what accessory would I not be without. I said a strong and small enough "D" lock. Small enough to put in my butt pocket. and no I dont mean up my arse thanks.

Bike Couriers have spoken to the media a lot of late and even when the journalist asks questions that seem harmless. It seems that the editors at one of our main publishers seem to always put a negative spin on the story when there is a bike courier involved. I can say they are burning their bridges.

2nd Bottom pic is of Simon from Perth doing a 315 meter skid ( 1017.0572999999999 feet)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

I am a member of the SYDBMA. That is short for Sydney Bicycle Messenger Association. Long ago I was indeed a bike courier. I like to help the current gang of bike couriers because I actually get a good vibe out of it. Long ago in a galaxy far far away... I was as fast as the fastest inner city bike messenger/courier, now I have a few bikes but I can in no way claim that I'm fast nor furious anymore.

All I really have is my health and retrospect of the situation.

I rode as a Bike messenger for just over 10 years. I now have a well paid job, and another one of them too. However I would gladly say that I would return to being on the bike all the time if I could. The reality is a mortgage and age has caught me.

I Know that I have called the same thing "Bike Messenger" and "Bike Courier", but the only difference is geography.

I come from Sydney Australia and can happily claim that I am not well traveled at all... However I have been told that I am a worldly kinda guy.

Currently I am excited.

I am excited about the fact that in October of this year SYDBMA is hosting the 2006 CMWC. Things here in Sydney have been a factory of ideas and movements towards the final show. There is a committee for this and a group for that... They all report in and stuff indeed gets done.

I have done what I can and I hope that THEY (kinda like the royal "WE") pull it off. I have set them up a web site and offer to do the maintenance on it

good luck guys I wish you a great CMWC XIV