Karate Monkey Landspeed Record attempt

In my bid to build the fastest Karate Monkey on the planet I have a way to go. My second attempt at wind tunnel testing on the Rimutaka incline proved problematic as a southerly came through. I was in danger of getting hypothermia in the actual tunnel as the wind tried to wrestle the 2nd rain jacket I was trying to put on from my grip.

It's at this time of the year (spring) that the weather is always at its worst. Winter is a doddle in Wellington. It's always mild and mostly dry and most of the time you don't even have to wear gloves. Ok, it snowed this year. But that has never happened before. Spring sucks. I am getting probably 1 dry ride out of 3, and the trails are a mess.

The first speed enhancement I tried was my home brewed aero-bars, followed by a reverse slammed riser stem, the Freeload rack speed-pod, then the Wheelbuilder.com wheel covers (disc wheel emulator). A 46 tooth big ring helps too.

Room for an expresso pot, tools and spare shorts. 

Wind tunnel testing is all very well, but its on the race track where you see if all the hours of computer modelling you have been doing pays off. Unfortunately the disc cover caused a slight rubbing on the brake caliper, so I had to eliminate it from the test. I could have run my tri-spoke on the front, but that would have meant putting the v-brakes back on. Too hard.

The race was on what the UK Time Trial testers would call a "sportsmans" course, a winding 22kms in the country with lots of the nasty coarse 3/4 chip that we specialise in here in NZ. You can tell it was slow when the fastest time was a  41kmh on a hi-end TT rig. We got hammered with a rain squall coming through as well.

The best I could manage was 35kmh in 37.25 mins. Pretty pathetic, but with 32 spokes smashing into the wind, Armadillo tires and very wide handlebars I guess I shouldn't have expected too much. I did sit on 54kmh for a bit on the wednesday worlds ride early that week, but then I also went out the back some time shortly afterwards : )

The fat tires are back on now. But if anyone else wants to have a crack, we can start with the Karate Monkey World Landspeed record at 35kmh for 20 kms. All results must be verified.

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A different kind of parrot sketch

I got out on my road bike before work yesterday, but by golly it felt horrible compared to my Karate Monkey. Tiny carbon handlebars with negligible brakes. I was buzzed though when a flock of about 7 Rosellas flew directly over my head. Better than the Coach Track Magpie who must have had a crack at me 8 times in about 800 metres a week back. Then as I was going past the Rimutaka prison turn-off I saw an adolescent Pukeko chick with its parent and directly across the road were a pair of Paradise Ducks with the tiniest of chicks. Unfortunately this morning on my commute I found a severly injured male Paradise duck on the road that I had to euthanise. A real shame as they are said to mate for life. I thought I would cheer myslelf up with this clip of a Kakapo getting jiggy on some guys head.

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Wind tunnel testing for Brevet

Well I know I said I wasn't competitive about this thing... but there was a tunnel, and it had wind in it...

I left work at 4pm on friday with the idea of a getting a longer ride in, leaving the weekend open for all the other stuff like, house maintainance, market and veggie shopping and as it turned out, BBQ prep. 

I loaded up on batteries and a cookie time, with the idea of heading to the top of the Rimutaka Incline summit, travelling as much as I could on the gravel. Unfortunately I always get lost at the bit up the Plateau road, so I bypassed this and had to do some tarmac from Moonshine North. Next time I will sort it out.

I was testing my new home modified aero bars and I was rapt with the way they felt. Actually more comfortable, more aero and lighter than the Profile T2's that I used in the Brevet last time. The position is a bit more extreme than the position on the T2 as the pads are ON the handlebar rather than BEFORE the handlebar. I was amazed at how much control I had when I had built up my confidence, and that was with the narrow CX tires on. Unfortunately it was quite a short ride, with a tail wind on the way out, and downhill on the return, it was a little bit over 3 hours and not even dark when I got home. Maybe next time I will drop down to Cross Creek to make it a bit longer.

Its great getting out on the gravel river trails, no stress from the traffic and quite relevant to XC or Brevet riding. I have tended to completely ignore them in the past but no more! People don't tend to think of the Hutt Valley as a Picnic/River destination but its as good as many other places in NZ that people rave about.

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Only 134 sleeps til the Kiwi Brevet !

I knew I was really looking forward to 2012's Kiwi Brevet when I was daydreaming about the new course and I nearly rode into the back of a parked car. I also had this strange dream where I was riding my bike flanked by a group of Pukekos. Birds are very portentous to me. Native birds anyway. Maybe it was a combination of Brevet memories of all the Wekas we came across near Moana, and the time we were riding with a baby deer. The mind does strange things. I have done a lot of very cool things over the years on my bike, but so far the Kiwi Brevet tops them all. A special combination of adventure, camaraderie and challenge.

Last time I was very green, and apart from doing Outward Bound in 1984 I didn't have much outdoor experience. My aim was to able to cope with anything that nature threw at me. I wasn't interested in buying into the "accommodation anxiety" thing, riding on into the small hours to try and make it to pre-booked accommodation. I felt the need to be prepared. If you break a freewheel in the middle of the bush your credit card wont save you, so I took a bivvy sack and a sleeping bag.  As it happened we did experience a breakdown of sorts with my buddy coming down with heat-stroke and an enforced camp 3/4s of the way up the Mangatapu on day 1. Its not like he wasn't fit. We had done a fair bit of training together and I was worried about keeping up with him to be honest. Anyway, we had the gear for a comfy night out so we were sweet. It was the most memorable night of the ride for me too. Camped out on Murders rock, with an amazing night sky..

In the end we were all very lucky, with good weather the whole time and what seemed like a perpetual tailwind. That doesn't mean to say it will be the same this time around. New Zealand's weather can be very changeable.

This time I am looking at different bike options. Last time I adopted a pretty simple approach. I brought a Freeload rack and bolted it onto my Santa Cruz full suspension bike (my installation pix here). Freeload built the first, and to my knowledge only rack that will bolt on to almost any fully (or suspension fork). If you have a fully the only other option is one of these overgrown seat bags. Having never used a seat bag I cant comment on how they work. I guess the weight is up a little higher. Freeload also do a pannier specific rack now, which I have but have yet to test.

I ended up riding with two other guys with Freeload racks. Jonty had them on both ends and Nick had one with panniers on the back. While they would have have been very envious of my fully as we rode through the Molesworth corrugations, I was very envious of the ease of access that Nick had to gear in his saddlebags. There was no messing about with un-strapping a dry bag which you probably just spent 15 minutes cinching up so it wouldn't wobble off after a couple of hours on a gnarly track. A couple of small side panniers like Nicks were brilliant.

Outside the Black Ball Hilton.

Now that I have a rigid 29er Surly Karate Monkey I am wondering if I should use that. Its going to be at least 2 pounds heavier than the Santa Cruz which weighed in at 28.5 pounds with aero-bars and rear rack (no load). The 29er wheels roll beautifully and I am not yet convinced the weight would make a lot of difference.

It didn't seem to be a problem for the Aussie Brovet guys who came over with their fully loaded Salsa Fargos.  There is a hell of a lot of climbing in the Kiwi Brevet, but it is spread out over 1100kms. Its got to be pretty damn steep for a heavier bike to make a big difference. There will be a few very steep segments this time around, probably more than there was last time, but if it comes down to it, if you get out of bed 30 minutes earlier the next day, any disadvantage from having a heavier bike would be gone (I think). This implies a degree of competitiveness, which we weren't actually buying into in 2010.  I am pretty sure I wont be buying into it again in 2012 ! The Karate Monkey is also a very simple bike, cable discs which are so set and forget, compared to my finicky hydraulics, and friction bar-end shifters. No pivots or shocks to break. Who am I trying to convince?

Cleetus in Port Underwood. It was hot.

Riding a fully in 2010 made it fun for me. I am wondering if that's what kept me fresh and enabled us to bang out the last 200 plus kms from Hanmer in under 11 hours. How tired would I be if I rode a steel rigid bike the whole way. That is the big question. Am I stuck on the big-wheeled band-wagon? I guess I need to do a few long rides. Some with CX tires, some with full sized tires. The CX tires fairly scream along on the flat stuff, but in lieu of suspension, a fatter tire is the only suspension you will be getting on a rigid frame.

More questions, a camera or not? I took some good photos last time, many of them good enough to be used in magazines, and I also used my little phone to take some passable photos for blogging. What's the use of doing such a cool event if you don't take the time to snap a few quality shots to document it and skite about what a fun time you are having while you are doing it! There is a lot of weight in there if you also take a phone charger, plus one for your lights. The new Ayup light's batteries come with a low-power light setting so that could greatly extend battery life.

The next thing I am geeking out on is a bivvy sack versus a tarp. A tarp could be a bit smaller and breathe a lot better. I only used my bivvy sack twice last time and I found it a bit sweaty. Here is a very cool set-up. Charlotte used one like this in 2010. Check out this website pimping the pros of "quilts". It actually makes a lot of sense.I am also keen to use aero bars again, they are a great place to hang some light gear off and you really appreciate having another position for your hands, and the ability to stretch out and take some more weight off your butt. I made sure I was well used to my aeros before the last Brevet and even did a lap of the Coppermine circuit when in Nelson with them on. Right now I am messing with some home-grown minimalist aeros in my shed. Never throw anything out : )

So that's were I am at at the moment.Thinking about the Kiwi Brevet on February 4th 2012.
Only 134 sleeps !

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Some of my favourite pix

I reckon you are better to have a crappy camera in your pocket than an expensive one at home in your cupboard. Here are some of my favourite pix. None of them are from particularly flash cameras. All of them point and shoots, a Canon Power Shot A460 and a Canon Power Shot SX200IS.

If you want to see what you can do with a compact camera, check out this guy's stuff, its really impressive. http://www.gnatlikes.com/


Cleetus ripping up Mt Climie on his Singular Gryphon

 

Jonty and Chris on the Molesworh in the Kiwi Brevet

 

Cleetus on Mt Climie again

 

Jonty in the Waiuta on the Kiwi Brevet

Snow on Belmont Trig this year.

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Flatter than a flat thing. Nth island CX champs.

That was the worst I have felt in race since the singlespeed world champs last year.
I was flatter than a flat thing. Such is life. But I have got to tell you about it just so I can include this cool photo that Craig Madsen took. You can't tell that I am complete rubbish in it. At least I had the option to have a free beer on each lap, not that I did... I dont think I have recovered from the 6-peaks 6-pack ride I did a few weeks back... thats probably why I am flat... Too old for that kind of nonsense.
Craig Madsen had just got off the plane from Interbike 2 hours earlier, he raced, took photos and was full of gossip and tales which I could tell you about but then I would have to track you down and kill you, and I am too flat for that right now..

Well done to Bike Hutt's Mike Anderson for putting on a great series of events. Cyclo-cross was the winner on the day and there were costumes and all sorts of dodgy things going on. I am not sure, but I think one of the Hawkes  Bay guys won, but on a beer count-back the local Yeti Alex Revell may have taken home the trophy. A good report here from Ken.

Legend of the day had to go to Mark Humphries for riding his Pugsly in all three races! He is gonna kill himself or get very very strong. It was also good to see "Frog" Woodward who I don't think I have seen since the North Island Cup at Dry Creek in 1993. Funny how things go. I am pretty sure that back then Frog was on a double chain-ring set-up with drop-bars. How bizzare. There is truly nothing new under the sun.

It was great catching up with heaps of the local crew and some of my old Brevet buddies who are starting to get a bit amped about Simon Kennett's 2012 Kiwi Brevet !!

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The importance of arithmetic

I had my first real MTB race on the Karate Monkey on sunday at the Wainuiomata Trail Park, round 1 of the PNP series. It was also my first offical race as a Master 3 (50 year old). Not that I am 50 yet, but I will be this calendar year. Given that I was M3, I knew there would be limited technical challenge to the course (knowing the course designer's preferences quite well) so running a rigid frame wouldn't be too much of a hindrance.

Photo borrowed from Andy Woodwarks Collection

The hooter sounded and I wound up the new 46 sprocket (thanks Marco) and shot past a fair few of the combined M3, M1 and elite field before we turned off 10 seconds later onto the first climb. Straight away I was hammering up behind my old protege Jordan Blake and before long Marco floated up behind us on his 17 pound C-dale. I could see Marco was angling to take the left hand side of the water-tower at the top of the first climb, but my gut feeling was that the right side was quickest. Jord had the local knowledge so I went with him. Good call, we didn't see Marco again for quite a while, until I heard him call out from behind that "The Painting Man was coming through". Despite his digital weight-loss techniques Ian Paintin was still a bit behind on the climb, but was about to make his move. He busted through on the descent and we levelled out again on the next small climb.


The first of the granny climbs went well but I lost traction just before the top. On the second climb, Ian had the good line on the left, and I had the gnarly one on the right, but he spun out and speared off over to my side forcing me off,  apologising profusely like the gentleman racer he is.

We remounted and somewhere before the main ridge track Marco made his move and got ahead of me before the left turn into the newly built Towai single track. Ian was having none of it and retook the lead, having been caught behind Marco's extra large elbows before. I on the other hand was not so clever and spent what seemed like an eternity stuck behind the Godfather until he agreed to pull over. I have the guys in the workshop working on a high-voltage Capacitor Discharge device that should enable me to give Marco a good zap on the ring-piece if he shows a lack of fair play again!

The new Towai track was great. Narrow and winding, and a bit rooty, but I cant wait to get out on it again. The wagon wheels on the Karate Monkey seemed to eat it up quite well, but I suspect a bit of front end suspension would have been a help. I got out onto the main trail in second place wondering how far up ahead the Painting Man was.

The bee-line descent went well, (took the girls route) up Jungles and down Snails and over the Wetlands and on to an unmarked fork in the track. Bugger. What to do. The majority of the wear and tear to the track seemed to be to the right so I went that way. Doh! 20 seconds later I almost had a head-on with someone coming the other way so I back tracked back and took the left hand fork. I heard a coasting free-wheel up ahead and wondered if it was another super-crusty who had passed me while I was going the wrong way. Sure enough I spied Gary Moller up ahead. Catching him was hard, as I kept hitting back markers. They were always courteous and pulled over where they could. Gary is at the upper end of the super-crustys age bracket and has just gotten faster over the last 3 or so years. I snuck past him near the top of the climb somewhere but didn't put much time on him down Snails on the next lap.

Somewhere along here things get hazy. I would swear on my death bed that I did 3 laps of the course, as outlined in the Course Algebra description, but obviously I did 4, and I apologise for convincing Gary that we had an extra lap to go, as it cost both of us a place on the podium. A small amount of post-race research found that there was a strong correlation between our numeracy skills and our final positions, with school cert maths results having a big influence on the final outcome with Ian Paintin scoring 98, Marco 86, and me a dismal 50. It all makes perfect sense now.

All things considered it was a good day, a fun track and some good riding. Things are looking a bit dire up our way at the moment. The Waitangirua Forest Park is closed for lambing and Danzig is likely to get levelled so that the timber can be turned into car-boxes in Japan. On the up side Marco and his buddies are building a new link track from the Coach track across to Hill Road  (I think).

The above foto was from Andys shots. More photos and relevant links here.

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Snow business

Who would have thought, my first ever experience of riding on snow would happen in my own back yard!
After the dumps we got at our house I figured there might be heaps more up the hill, so headed off up to the top of Belmont Trig before work. It was amazing, no wind and about 6 to 8inches deep where there was a northerly aspect. Hard work riding up it, but a blast coming down!

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Where are the roadies?

Here are a couple of nice shots from Craig Madsen from The Bike Hutt's latest Cyclo Cross in Upper Hutt.
He must have had some old black and white film in the back of the fridge ; )

Craig's Pugsly was a popular ride at the race. Incredible to think that Surly are about to launch one with even fatter tires called the "Moonlander".

About 1.3 seconds after this I slipped and fell flat onto my knees in front of the next barrier ! The guys that were bunny-hopping these were taking heaps of time out of those of us that werent. There are some great photos of guys on CX bikes getting big air in the Bike Hutt facebook, in particular Ben Knight.

It was a full-on course with lots of tight corners and quite a few barriers to deal with. The hardest one for me so far. What was really cool was seeing the little kids doing their race. This is the perfect environment for the kids to race in as its not easy to find flat places for kids in the Wellington area.

I am a bit surprised to be going as well as I am at these events as my bike training at the moment is pretty much 1 ride a week ( 2.3 hrs a week average over the last 3 months) as I get ready for the Butterfly Creek Midnight Madness Night Run which is on this weekend in the Hills above Eastbourne.

Its a 15 km two-man teams event, (480 metres of climbing) but unfortunatley myself and Cleetus both got broken-arses last week, him with his back going out, and me with my first time experience of  ITB (illiotibial band syndrome). I probably got it by trying to run downhill too fast just trying to keep Cleetus in sight. Hopefully with a serious taper we can enjoy ourselves for a few hours on saturday night.

More photos here from the Bike Hutt's Facebook page. Ken Feist had a good race and on his Blog asks the question we are all thinking. Where are the Wellington Roadies? As I was waiting for Cleetus at the bottom of the Hill (on the ride out) both the Welly bunch-ride and the Meoow GP ride came through. I guess we missed our chance to infiltrate and spread the good word....

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Drop it like its hot !

The Karate Monkey is getting close to being a final build with the addition of some MTB wheels - brand new, complete with new Racing Ralphs for $285 off tardme!

Some Avid BB7s disc brakes (mtb version) complete the package. All of this has bumped the weight up by about 3 pounds to about 27.5 pounds over the v-braked road-wheeled iteration I was using at the CX's. The CX tires will be back on for this weekend hopefully.































It got a good hammering at Wainui Trail Park last weekend. The drop bars were great, but the rear brake was almost unusable they were skidding so much. I know that the Racing Ralphs roll incredibley well on the road, so a bit of the skidding could be caused by them, but I think I basically had the Avid BB7's set up too well. I backed off the inside pad a few turns when I got home. Hopefully it will make them less vicious as the outside pad will have to drag the disc over to the inside which should knock back the efficiency a bit.

I am really liking the Woodchipper drop-bars. I cut 2 inches off each side last week so now I can at least get them into the shed without snagging bottles of turps and paint brushes all over the show.

The position of your hands when riding these off-road is such that its like hanging onto a big set of bar-ends. You can get massive amounts of power through them, which is handy, because with bar-end shifters, I am not going to be changing gears as often as I would if I had an STI road shifter on the front right.

There are several reasons for this choice of shifters. You need a different set of BB7s for road pull levers (mine are special ones that pull the normal MTB amount) and I am using them in friction mode as I would be surprised if STI would work with my circuitous cable routing : )

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Why you should take Global Warming seriously

Beer - it's a kiwi favourate - but according to NIWA global warming might just be about to taint your pint.

Another beer related item. DB has managed to gain ownership of the trademark 'Radler' . Imagine if Ford were the only people allowed to call there cars "CARS". The rest of would be driving "Motorised buggies".

I like the suggestion of Radler brewers putting an '@' in the name to give the finger to DB.

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Trees are our friends

Last saturday myself and celebrity seismologist Mr Cleetus, hit the Wainui Trail Park yet again. We were both on our rigi-didgy 29ers and as I followed him up the Wainui Hill I pointed out that his rear dropout looked less than perfectly vertically aligned. He acknowledged my concerns and pedalled on. We shot up Labyrinth to check out the new trail that is being built up near the top - The Towai Traverse? It is really coming along and is quite different to the other trails at WTP. A bit more natural rather than being so smoothly bermed. Towards the end of the trail it started to get pretty muddy. Initially my Beaver/Karma combo was sweet, but before long it had turned into a big fat mess just like Cleetuses dry weather Geax Akkas.

Before long there was a foul exclamation and Cleetus stopped to view his now extremely dislocated rear derailleur which was jammed between the spokes in a most unnatural position. His non-replaceable steel drop-out was also looking very munted. We were in a quandry. What would Bear Grylls do? It was way too cold to pee on our tee shirts and make a bandana so I elected to break the chain and make a singlespeed to hopefully get us home.

After 10 minutes we eventually found the power-link in the mud covered chain and we removed the rear derailleur. Cleetus related to me a belief that it might be possible to realign his drop-out to a usable level by leveraging it between two branches in a tree. 

 It sounded far-fetched to me, but anything was worth a go. Low and behold there just happened to be several trees near-by, one of which was a good fit. 10 minutes later the whole thing was reassembled and we scrambled up the short-cut to the firebreak to continue our ride.

We decided to keep it safe and leave the gear changing to a minimum but had to ride down the Snail Trail at least a couple of times. Its a very fun trail on a rigid bike and I was really enjoying the control on the "wide-as" Woodchipper bars. I always assumed that they were a disadvantage to Cleetus, but I am well and truly convinced now that they are not.

We shot up Jungle Gym and Directors and down the Wainui Hill to finish off an eventful day.

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