Another good reason to ride the road: It’s reported that 200 mountain bikers in a race in Squamish, British Columbia, became ill from feces in mud on the course. “Campylobacter jejuni” was identified as the bug, causing diarrhea and abdominal cramps for 2-10 days. “All you could see were the whites of the riders’ eyes from the pictures we saw,” said a doctor, failing to mention any white teeth. After the race, an investigation of sick riders was conducted by Canadian health agencies.

Source: http://www.roadbikerider.com/currentissue.htm

Thanks for the rides, dinners, housewarming/baby-shower/BBQ event/function/reunion thingies. I must say I still like Melb more than London.

You guys just consider yourself lucky that the weather was too hot for me to drag you out for a 160km ride.

HP and Ash - all the best with the new jobs.
HY - be sure to send some pics in 29 days time.
DJ - get a MTB!
Al and Lish - I’m sure everything will be fine!
Keith and Minh - not long to go now! (until Keith totally gives up cycling that is )
Phil - good seeing you and Mads again. Good luck with the house hunting/wedding arrangements etc. Go resurrect the Triads team!

P.S. A few photos from the BBQ on my FaceBook.

Guys, just some random pics from a couple of trips/ shows from last year. the cities should be pretty self explanatory for you geography buffs out there… enjoy

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We started out with big plans but it turned into a Cafe Racer type of ride, ending up with just over 30 minutes of actual riding. Keith, Norm and I did ONE, that’s right, ONE climb of 1/20. Then we stood around at Sassafras chatting and trying to decide how much further to ride. Eventually, it became not just how much further we should ride, but whether we should ride any further at all. All three of us have to share the blame for it: Keith was saving his legs for racing tonight, I was just waiting for Keith to give us an excuse and Norm let us get away with it.

It was lunch time anyway, so we headed back to The Basin… but there were no chili pies again! I had to settle for a regular meat pie. At least I got some trackstanding practice on the road bike in the car park.

It was a hot day for a ride and we made it even worse by starting quite late at 8am from Keith’s place. Keith, Norm, HYG and I showed up for the ride to Frankston. The pace was good on the way down with the tailwind so we knew it was going to be painful on the way back. Sure enough, there was a very hot and gusty headwind on the return leg. The BOM reports that the wind was a northerly of 10-15 knots increasing to 15-20 knots, with the temperature somewhere around 35 degres. It’s hitting 37 degrees in Melbourne now as I type this. We bumped into Martin of the many bikes at Mordialloc where I ooohed and aaahed at his bike(s) for the second day in a row.

It was a real grovel on the final stretch of East Boundary/Murrumbeena Road but we all made it back safely. I now have an awesome tanline on my forehead.

Hay, Alan and I headed out this afternoon for a few hours along the Yarra Trail. I hadn’t been out there for a while so it was good to visit these tracks again. We started out on the easy singletrack and everyone was riding together - all good. I started throwing the bigger drops at Hay and I was surprised that he was basically following me down everything. I know that in my first few rides out on the MTB I was always tentative on anything that looked slightly tricky.

We continued out along the tracks around the Yarra Trail without any major incidents. Continuing past Rosanna Golf Club, I was following along behind Alan and we were getting towards the end of a section so I did a sprint past him yelling, “Yeaaahhh”. I overcooked the next corner though and went down in a dusty heap so it was more like, “Yeeeaaahhh….. UUNNNPPPH!” First crash.

Following that, we continued along the trails to Westerfolds Park where we got on a very narrow trail that follows the path and the bridge - Keith and HYG will know this bit. Riding along this narrow bit of trail, I made a mistake and slipped down the wrong side of the trail. I think I rolled twice and ended up about 4 metres down the embankment. So lucky I didn’t hurt myself badly and so lucky that I was stopped by the trees, otherwise I would have kept rolling and probably ended up in the river. Second crash. Since I was riding at the tail of the group, it took a few minutes for the other two to realise I’d gone down. In the meantime, I was trying to get myself out of there without assistance. Good thing the other two came back because I wasn’t having any success.

After that incident, we decided to take it a bit easy and stick to some easier trails. After a quick stop at a cafe to grab a drink, we headed back along the sealed paths. At one point as we were coming down the hill with a bit of speed, Alan made a last second decision to turn left. I wasn’t prepared for it and had overshot the turn so I made a sudden stop. Hay was right behind me and must have locked up his brakes. I just heard tyres sliding and turned around to see Hay doing a very stylish body roll dismount. 8.5 out of 10. Third crash. Very lucky he didn’t come out of that crash with any injuries.

The rest of the ride was incident-free. As is usual everytime I hit the Yarra Trails, I came out of this ride with some injuries - scratches on my left arm, both knees, right ankle, chainring marks on the OUTSIDE of my right leg, bruise on my head, jarred neck.