Undie 500 version 2.

A new frame for the undie 500 Franken-bike. Quite a bit lighter, (alloy) and shorter, so a tad more squirrely. Took it out on the Hutt River Trail with Cleetus to test it out. Its currently sporting a 42-32 crank - an MTB minus the granny : ) It went pretty good, not sure if it's up to the Crazyman course though, especially not in todays conditions !

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Some of my best friends are triathletes

Ive always been a fan of the sport of triathlon from the early days of Erin Baker and Rick Wells. I often wished I could swim so I could give it a crack, but a lack time and a propensity to sink had me sidelined. My most recent attempt in learning to do freestyle resulted in a completely munted back and a withdrawal from a half finished learn to swim course. I could think of plenty of other ways to wreck my back that were a lot more fun than swimming so once again it went on hold.

My good buddies Susie Wood and Gary Milbanke had been doing the Xterra Triathlon (very successfully) for quite a few years now and kept pimping it to me as something I just had to do. A 1km swim, 29km Mountainbike and a 11km run in the Rotorua forests sounded like a pretty fun event (for someone who isn't a real triathlete), and with some prompting from my buddy Matt and a very kind loan of a wet-suit and googles his evil plan of kicking my arse in a triathlon was taking shape.

I quickly found that being a triathlete takes a lot more effort than I was used to, and the downside is that you pretty much suck at all three disciplines. I don't like sucking below a certain level, but my swim training stood me in good stead as I went completely under water at the start of the Karapoti Classic this year.

Given the time it would have taken me to learn to float, and then swim freestyle for longer than 1 length, I elected to swim breast stroke instead, which I could already do at some rudimentary level. Swimming is boring as hell but at least I could poke my head up out of the water to look around every stroke, and compared to a free-styler, I can cut 20% off the course, just by swimming in a straight line.

I ended up having two swims in the sea before Xterra, and discovered why they say “swallow salt water” if you eat something nasty and you need to expel it. Yuck. The water in Tikitapu (The Blue Lake) was like Perrier compared to Scorching Bay!

Dr Seuss using her dial-up, our link to the outside world

Susie and Gazza had organised a salubrious crib for us at Lake Okareka, only minutes from the Race HQ, and proceeded (each day) to pick up a collection of training partners from Nelson from the airport. Being the perfect hosts, they then showed them all around the course. Susie was on fire in the single-track in what must be some of the most fun trails in NZ. Split Enz, Huckleberry Hound, Corners and G-Rock were all part of the MTB course and there was plenty of medium ring climbing for the elevation gain, all in all, a very honest MTBers course.

Our crib-mates Lyndon and John had some pretty serious palmares, some more recent than others. We were all waiting to see if Lyndon would unleash his 4.05 minute mile on us at some stage. John elected to pre-ride the whole course the day before, including one lap of the run. I don't think he managed to sneak in a swim though as it was getting late in the day.

Cleetuses freak-mobile sporting Geax Akka rubber

The weather was picture post card perfect on race day. Apparently the water was cold and the swimming rough, as far as getting clouted around the ears goes. I guess I was too far out the bum to notice. I really enjoyed the swim only dropping 3 mins to the majority of our camp who surfaced in around 13 mins – except for John who cranked out an 11 minute swim. Awesome! I discovered why Susie oiled her calves with baby oil when my wet-suit became stuck on my ankles! Bugger....My transistion took 2 mins 24 seconds... Compare that to Richard Ussher's at 41 seconds. Mind you, I also put on gloves and socks, a real no-no for the Pros. There were some very nastily blistered heels and toes in our camp at the end of the day I can tell you. There was just no way I was going to try to use gripshift with wet and potentially sweaty hands, and apparently the well meaning locals had just resurfaced the transistion area so it was covered in loose sharp gravel, I got a stone in my sock as it was.

I treated the MTB a bit like a Cyclo Cross race as I desperately tried to pull in all the punters on flat pedals and toe-clips before they got into the single track to thwart my progress. It wasn't too bad and I reckon that after an hour I eventually caught up to Matt Farrar, Lyndon and Matt Gerstenberger, the later two both on 29ers, Matt's being of the rigid drop-barred variety. I was surprised to see Matt who I thought would have had a massive lead from the swim, not so, but he was riding really well on some very technical trails.

Just before catching Matt I had caught up with Catherine Dunne and gave her some gentle sledging. “You are going pretty well for an old lady” I yelled, and surprisingly I got no response until I pulled up beside her. Catherine was on her best behaviour and I rode with her for a bit until I managed to pull away somewhere.

Sometime later I heard a very polite womens voice.. “Hellooo”, “Hellooo”. Cripes, a lady had caught me, either she was in a very fast team or she was a very crap swimmer! (It was the latter...) It was the legendary local Anikka Smail. She rode away from me without even pedalling, such was her mastery of the trail. Pumping it without braking. Impressive. 

It was time for a Gel and to think about preparing myself mentally for the run. Crib-mate Lyndon is a physio and I started doing some exercises that he suggested while descending down to the bike-run transistion. It must have worked, because when I eventually found my shoes and got them on, there was none of the back-spasm induced duck-shuffle that I had experienced in previous transition training attempts.

The 11 km run was a beauty, two laps with a real varied mixture of single track, a set of stairs, a gentle climb, a gentle descent and more singletrack. Just into my second lap I think I started to suffer a bit more and someone yelled out “Your'e going alright for an old man!” It wasCatherine Dunne, I let her past and she took another 2 mins out of me in the last 5kms of the run : ) A number of runners were passing me now, compared to none on the first lap. I rolled my ankle badly about 1 km from the finish but it didnt matter. It was over, 2 hours and 57 minutes of swimming, biking and running in a stunning location. 

Susie shows how its done for 2nd place.

It was a long way from the winner Richard Usshers time of 2.17, and still a long way from camp mother Susies 2.43 !

Susie, got her fourth podium in as many years with a 2nd place, after recording the fastest womans MTB split and getting run down by national MTB champ Karen Hanlen on the last lap of the run. Gazza got bumped from 3rd to 4th when another competitor decided he didn't want to be a pro after all. John was 3rd, Lyndon 14th, Matt 7th and myself 6th in our respective age-group categories.

John was on a brand new, (until then), unridden Jamis Carbon 29er, Lyndons was an alloy Fisher 29er I think. Matt was on his usual mount, Singular 29er with rigid fork and drop-bar. Susie Gazz and myself were all on Santa Cruz 26ers, them, Carbon Blurs, me the Superlight.

I didn't even have to win to get a tatoo!

I am not sure if tires make a lot of difference in Rotorua, but you are definitlely best to err on the side of "fast". Matt's Geax Akkas were obviously way faster than the 2.4 inch Conti monstrosities he usually totes around Wellington and he lost no confidence in going to the faster tire. Gazz was on the light and minimally treaded Furious Freds, Susie had a bit more tread on her tires, Continental Speed King Supersonics I think, but it didn't slow her down measureably, the only one of us riding faster splits than her being Gazza. I had the very minimally treaded Stans Raven on the back and the Vredestein Spotted Leopard (seriously thats what its called) on the front. I had no problems on the back at all, but had a few slides on the front while trying to keep Susie in sight on the front in training.

So there it is. If you ever wanted to do a Triathlon, cant swim, and like MTBing, then this could be your next fun thing to do. http://www.xterra.co.nz . The trails in Rotorua are so good, we rode everyday we were there.

I had a real treat ready for me when I got back to Wellington, but thats another story....

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The Karapoti Blogs - a Wellington angle

Sifters story. You can feel the grit in your eyes....
http://sifter-writes-bikes.blogspot.com/2011/03/karapoti-2011.html

Lynskey, the diary of a retro singlespeeder.
Really good if you want to know what it was like at the pointy end of the SS league. A good ripping yarn.
http://moon-rambler.blogspot.com/2011/03/hard-work-at-karapoti.html

Oli's photo-essay. A picture tells a thousand words.
http://oli-roadworks.blogspot.com/2011/03/karapoti-2011.html

Hamish Norton - Newbie SSer
An ex hard-core trackie, personal trainer and all round nice guy. Got mixed up with a bad crowd and only made two bad moves. Buying a single speed, and riding it around Karapoti! Not doing the Karapoti cos its muddy is a bit like not doing Iditarod cos it snowed eh ? Hamish inspires.
http://onegoodrun.propellife.co.nz/2011/03/karapoti-2011-inside-story.html

Bushlove Racing.
Bush, racing, and mud.
http://www.bushloveracing.com/2011/03/karapoti-swimming-race.html

Ken Feist
Hardcore CXer - Brutal, free-ride even, no, those are not arm-warmers!
http://kenfeistcx.com/2011/03/05/murphys-law/

Alex Revell
A new 29er for Yeti's Yeti.
http://yeti.blackseal.co.nz/wordpress/?cat=13

Stu Houltham
National Champ, more than once.
http://stuarthoultham.blogspot.com/2011/03/karapoti-classic.html

Wayne Hiscock
World Famous in Upper Hutt.
http://hiskeysblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/wet-and-muddy-karapoti.html

Calum Chamberlain
Was studying seismology in the shakey isles. Timing is everything.
http://calumchamberlaincyclist.blogspot.com/2011/03/karapoti-famous-last-words.html

This blog!
http://jeffsbike.blogspot.com/2011/03/karapoti-2011.html

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Undie 500 - part 3

The undie 500 concept comes from a guy I met at my brother in law's in Nelson, he was into vintage moto-cross, and these people he knew were doing a "fire-roads" kind of a trek on these old motorbikes. They had to be worth under $500 though. It seemed like a lot of low-key fun.

To finish off my build I had to dig deep into the junk pile. An old cyclo-cross tire (ex-brevet) from Matt looks awesome on the front. The right hand brake lever is a v-brake compatible one given to me by Geoff some time ago. Geoff is a rather tall guy at my work who specialises in riding weird bikes that look like growths out of his bum. The left brake is an old one off the Geoffrey Butler that Hughy Mcparland gave me many years back. I had a choice of crap rear brakes so went with the shimano 105 over the Campy Record as I think the 105 has more tyre clearance.  I am pretty limited with what I can do there I think.

The rear wheel, or at least the hub, is an old shimano 600 that Matt threw out about 12 years ago. The front is an old style Durace... most likely from our old work-mate Sam Raphel's bike, which Matts still owns. The rear cluster is an old partly worn MTB 8 speed 11-32 which is meshing beautifully with the rustly old chain.

The rear derailleur is an old Durace one which has no problems at all with the ratios. I think I got that off Kirky a long time ago. The old shifters are running friction and feel great, but its just a bit un-nerving to take your hands off bars to shift when they are so wide, and you can accidently bump them on the way back up!

The Campy cranks are 53-42, so a bit tall for Danzig, so I have a 53-39 shimano at home that I could try. The seat is a Fizik that Paul Lewin gave me - not the worlds most comfy seat. The seat-post is an old heavy alloy jobby from something thrown out.

It had its maiden voyage to work via Hill Road - Belmont Road and Moonshine this morning. The verdict? It descended really well. The bars were awesome and it fair screamed along the road of course. If I had more time I would have taken the river trail. Any suggestions for a low profile but fatter rear trye welcomed - current one is just a 25mm Armadillo.

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Undie 500 - part 2

A new fork with canti bosses on it. Courtesy of Bruce at Adventure Cycles in Auckland. $ 45. I have some old vee brakes lying around too. Ex Kashi I think.

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Undie 500 - part 1

Goal: to build a fun dunger out of old stuff lying about for under $500. This frame was from skip outside lower hutt Avanti shop some years back. Old campy cranks thrown out by grass hopper.

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Karapoti 2011

Well, the Karapoti pulled its usual stunt, with weeks of very dry weather in the lead-up, and the usual turn for the worse in the last week. Fortunately mud is to Karapoti as ice is to eskimo's and the mud on tap on saturday was in one of its better forms. Wet and thin! As long as it kept raining lightly, there was no chance that it would dry and turn into the chain-sucking sticky mud we all hate.

Anyway, the gun went off - the flow in the river was strong, and seconds later I was fully submerged directly in front of the offical press photographer. Brilliant. I was less worried about drowning than I was about the bearings in my hubs and bottom bracket - the electronic key to Matts VW only popped into my mind later. Hopefully it would be well sealed in its plastic bag. A minute later I was on the tarseal wondering where my old starting speed was. It was official, I was as flat as a turd, best I let the race dictate to me, rather than kill myself and not make it through.

A few bunches of riders slowly passed me and eventually I saw both Trevor Woodward and Barryn on the side of the Gorge with punctures. I am not sure what happened there, no one has more sub-3 hour rides at Karapoti than Trev so it must have been a freak accident. You dont take risks on tyres at the poti thats for sure.

I ended up having some great dices up Deadwood with Gary Moller who has been having some great form this year for such an old bugger. I think for me it was often more efficient to run some bits rather than blow-up trying to ride every little dodgy bit.

One particular piece of track after deadwood was impressive with a small water-fall rolling down it. I stopped at the top of the Rock Garden for a gel just into time to see Gary Moller and Steve Owens from Wainuiomata go through. Awesome I thought, Steve has way better skills than me so I thought I could follow his lines. It was a pychological victory for me when he balked at the first big drop-off and I went hard right to fly past. Wahoo! Almost immediately I caught about 6 guys floundering away down the rock garden, and as they were devoid of momentum I was able to sneak past most of them.  

My plans to nail it (running) up the slippery Devils Staircase didnt come to much as there is pretty much nowhere to pass – until you get to the offical passing lanes : ) I managed to pick off another 6 or so riders before the top, where I stopped for a quick lube of the chain. No one passed me here.

At different points along the big Ring Boulevard I saw several people with punctures, one was Revolution Cycle's Jonty Ritchie and another was Oliver Whalley - Kiwi Brevet winner and room-mate from last years Singlespeed Worlds. After talking to Ollie later he admitted to using some very light weight tires. Bad move. My ghetto tubeless were going mint. A rather porky Nevegal on the front and a Larsen TT on the back, but no punctures or dodgy moments. Ollie is an engineer and will be involved in getting his home town of Christchurch back up and running, and his house, by the look of his blog : (

Somewhere down the Boulevard Trevor Woodward caught me and apologised for riding like a nana as he didnt have a spare tube. I managed to keep him in sight until the bottom of Dopers. From there to the finish he took 4 minutes out of me. I was in damage control mode up Dopers but not seeing stars so that was good. The descent down the other side was one of my better ones but the noise from my brakes was horrific. I think I was already braking on metal by then.  

Steven Owens beating me to the line - Photo shamelessly stolen from Oli  http://oli-roadworks.blogspot.com/

The Gorge just seemed to go on and on, and the puddles were sapping the life out of me. I got the fright of my life when Geoff Notman, who is at least my age, bombed past me on his rigid 29er singlespeed and rode straight throught that last stream cutting without even having to jump off. Amazing. I watched him up ahead, spinning like a nutter as we got onto the tarseal - looking over his shoulder to see If I was going to catch him and he could hitch a ride. He neednt have worried, I was toast. He ended up winning the single speed class and got the World Champ's (Garth Weinberg) scalp in the process. Legend. 2 hours 55.

The best thing about Karapoti is catching up with old friends. My old buddy, two times world masters 70+ pursuit champion, Garry Humpherson was there supporting his son Rex who still holds an age group record (2.35.04 - M1). Rex was on the podium again. It looked like there was a Cycle Services Reunion going on with all the purple tops around the place.

Speaking of records, my old protoge (Jordan Blake's) junior record (2.26.18) was in threat from phenom Anton Cooper who sprinted through the river to take the slenderist win from Dirk Peters. If its a dry year and Anton is still a junior then its up for grabs I reckon. It's hard to predict what will happen with a junior though as a lot can change in a few years. He really does look like the real deal though - he is out-lapping all the pro-elite riders in NZ currently.

My current protoge Tom Bradshaw came 2^nd to Anton at the Nationals this year but as he's started at Uni in Dunners he couldnt make it up to the poti. I got to race his dad - Ant Bradshaw, and barely sneaked home in front of him. A good result for Ant, 2nd to Arkie and 2nd in the MTB nationals a few weeks back. 

I am not 50 til October so under the Karapoti rules I had to race the younguns (40-49) where I finished 6th. I was pretty happy given that I have been training for the Xterra off road triathlon. Look out for me – the only twit doing breast-stroke!

I always think its great when you don't have any excuses. My bike was flawless. (Santa Cruz Superlight). It was my first Karapoti with discs and full suspension. I didn't crash, I didnt blow (completely). Mission accomplished !

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Rappa riding in the heat.

We took monday off and went over to the wairarapa for some gravel rangling. Got out as far as Pahaoa on the coast, and back to Hinakura up the back of Admirals, in to Gladstone pub for a coke and back to Martinborough. A big day in the Wairarapa heat.

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It's a wrap

Its a wrap. 2010 is over. For the first time this year I think I can say I was actually starting to feel my age. As the work project I have been slaving over for last few years came to fruition, the heat was on, and I just did not have the energy to multi-task and still be able to race effectively.

It wasn't the sort of year I am used to, with a strict absence of "form" pretty much through out the whole year. With the exception of the completely awesome Kiwi Brevet, I think I had one race all year where I was even "average". Not that I didn't have a lot of fun.

Anything else was always going to come up short compared to the Brevet, but I had some great trips with Team Voodoo Lounge, and Sepp, Ed, Pete and Callum in building up to the Single Speed Worlds. I wouldnt have missed that for anything.

The change of emphasis on riding with buddies, over racing competitively has been quite different, and a lot of fun, and requires a lot less motivation. A cold beer and a good laugh seems to be as good a reward as anything else I can imagine right now.

I am back at work again already, without really having much of a rest, unless you can call pulling down your car-port a rest. I have snuck in a few rides and runs and have worked my way through 12 episodes of  "The Wire" and a few cool podcasts. Hopefully we can escape Welly a bit later on.

The tree was the only thing holding it up!

Who knows what 2011 holds in store, but I see the St James track has been opened up to MTBers.
That might be a nice ride.

The Pohutakawa above the bike shed was looking good this year.

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They are playing my Tune

It was a very sad moment. My favorite hub had just broken. A slight buckle in the wheel had caused me to grab a handful of spokes to check the tension.... then plunk! A big piece of flange from the non-drive side had pulled away. I was mortified, I'd had that hub since 2003 at a guess, so it had done some hard yards. But it was a Tune Kong, probably the lightest hub available in the world at the time, a feathery 252 grams. It came courtesy of my duties as Kashi Leuch's webmaster.

Between Kashi's tenure on the Rockstar Volvo Cannondale team, and Julian Absalon's Bianchi team, he spent a year as an independant riding for Maxxis and Trek, with fruity-bits supplied by the guys at Tune. The hubs, along with, stem and cranks were all part of my payment for web-munstering duties for Kashi over the years. This was the only way a poor married with children racer like myself could aspire to such fruity kit.

The guys at Tune are serious freaks when it comes to componentry. The weight and visual appeal of some of this stuff is completely off the radar. Hubs with magnetic pawls and carbon fibre axles are not unheard of.

I have also had a Tune hub on my road bike since 2001 (this was my training and racing wheel) , and to this day it still hasn't even had to have its bearings replaced.

Being the geek I am, I thought the guys at Tune might be interested in seeing a picture of the broken hub flange, given that it was on the "non-drive" side so I emailed them one. Imagine my surprise when in a return email they offered their condolences and offered to replace the hub body for the cost of postage! Thats what I call service! Any warranty would have been long expired.

Eventually a new hub body turned up, and with the help of a mallet, a vise and a pair of pliers, I had installed my old axle and bearings. The new hub was a feathery 231 grams, and would be substantially less with an upgraded axle I would guess.

Some people in NZ might go on tours of the Cadburys chocolate factory in Dunedin, or the Tui beer factory in Mangatoinoka, but if I had my choice of tours, it would be the Tune factory in the Black Forest of Germany, as this lucky Weight Weener did.

I am looking forward to rebuilding that wheel and hitting the trails again with it.

Some more links:
Here is my own "how-to" on removing a Tune spider, with the "track-bike-tool".
Check out the images of  the famed alchemist Mr Tune (Uli Fahl's) rocket powered bike.

Be the envy of your friends and download the Tune "ring-tone", in case you can't guess, the sound of a coasting tune hub : )  or if the Mrs asks for suggestions, for a stocking filler for you this year, there is the 20th Anniversary Tune MTB groupset, for a paltry Euro 1500.00. I am not sure if the crank is included. More stingy wives may spring for the lovely Carbon Fibre cup and saucer set !

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Single speed worlds

This photo shamelessly stolen from NZ MTBing
entity Freditor Christiensen's facebook.

Single speeds worlds is done. What a cool event, like the rugby sevens, minus the rugby! Perfect.
Wicked costumes all round and some seriously cool bikes. They managed to get 900 riders tootling around a tiny starting pen in a clockwise direction at 2kmh for about 5 mins, and then, like a game of musical chairs they whipped open the gate, and those who just happened to be at the right place stormed out!

I was one of the first! What a blast. In the top10 ten at the SS worlds, what a dream start. It was about 5mins later that the current world champ (Ross Schnell) finally caught me as I was pushing my bike near the top of the first climb. Probably another 10 minutes later I was on the side of the track with a slow puncture. Bummer. Stuff happens. Hundreds of people must have passed me but it wasn't to be my day anyway. At then end of the first lap I was pretty cooked and still had one long slow lap to go.

At one point I pulled over for a rest and just checked out some of the cool costumes. Chris and Bob rolled by, Bob in her saucy nurses uniform. It was a hard ride, the hardest I have done for a long time. Not sure why. Maybe too much time off with the flu. If the singlespeed worlds ever come back you have to go, if not to ride, then at least to watch!

There were quite a few Welligntonians up there, but to be honest I would have expected a few more, maybe their brownie points were all used, or maybe they didn't realise what a blast it would be.

Photo by Kates friend Emily. Thats a dude in camo just
behind me,  and Hannibal Lecter and a Smurf to the left .

There were some very cool bikes up there, this was one them, but I think at the high end there is an element of being a bit too cool for school. It was almost like if you were out riding and were spotted on a geared bike that you might be jeered at! On the other hand, I am very keen to try some of these bars on my wifes commuter bike...

Thanks to Sepp for the transport and Callum and Kashi for the accommodation at the lovely bach at Lake Okareka. We also ended up sharing rooms with Kiwi Brevet winner Ollie, and I also met fellow Kiwi-Brevet rider Chris Tennent-Brown as we circulated in the "shark-pool" at the start.

More links. Singlespeed Champs Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40071&id=100000003948263&l=2b3f0cfaf5

Singlespeed Worlds site.
http://www.sswc10nz.com

Flickr (some good ones in here)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/79498713@N00/sets/72157625108601455/

Oh yeah, I have just seen the results and it looks like US Superbike Champion Ben Bostrum came 3rd ! (Behind Garth Weinberg -1st, and Ross Schnell - 2nd).

A very good post from Sifter who was up there helping out.
http://sifter-writes-bikes.blogspot.com/2010/10/whaka-100-and-single-speed-worlds-part_24.html

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These are a few of my favourite things....

These are few of my favourite things...
 A lunch-time lap of Dry Creek now that Danzig is pretty mucky.

Podcasts
Ideal for when you are doing a long ride (yeah right), or gardening, or painting the house.

This is one of my favourites, with US Legend Steve Larson, who passed away unexpectedly last year at the tender age of 39. He is pretty much the Forrest Gump of cycling and has achieved in all disciplines from Road, MTB, Xterra, Ironman. Its a great interview. http://competitorradio.competitor.com/?s=larsen . Competitor radio has masses of inteviews with all sorts of Endurance athletes from Rod Dixon and Lance Armstrong to Dave Scott.

This one is from The American Life. An amazing place for stories about things, some everyday, some completely out there, like this one about how before the US stock market crash, the company Magnetar brought up "toxic" debt and on-sold it, at the same time betting on its imminent failure. All completely legal, if morally corrupt.  http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/inside-job .

In this one, the Police install a new system for measuring crime stats, and before long they are "reclassifying" their crime to make it look like they are achieving new goals and meeting quota, something which is illegal. A cop disagrees with it, and wears a hidden microphone, right up to the point where they come into his house and have him "committed" to a mental hospital. The whole thing is recorded. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/right-to-remain-silent

You can download these for free via itunes, or stream them on the web.

Socks, a top and a multi-tool.
Everyone used to hate it when they got socks for birthdays as kids right? I know I did. I got these socks for the Kiwi Brevet and they are still going strong, I dont think they were cheap, but they are comfy and showing no signs of wear. Lorpen XBTC Multisport is the name.
You dont always have to pay top dollar to get a good product. This Kathmandu multi-tool has everything, including chainbreaker, a torxc and 4 spoke spanners. This Kathmandu "Altica" top is the best Poly-pro I have ever had, it doesn't get smelly, it doesn't get wet and it doesn't get too hot, once again, like the multi-tool, brought and used in the Kiwibrevet. We used the Multi-tool to re-true Sepps busted wheel during the Ride to Erewhon 155km event the other week.

Cupcakes.
Hmmm cup-cakes. Arent they lovely? Good enough to eat. My youngest daughter made these.

Look at thoses jugs!
The Kettle on the right in this picture has the name that was always associated with quality - when I was a youngster. If you had a Russel Hobbs, you were to be envied. They turned themselves off automatically, and they lasted for ever. Shiney steel with an important looking red button. The one on the right in this photo lasted about a week before the "lid activator" broke off. We got a new one. It broke off too. I think we put up with it for another two years, pouring the water in down the spout, then the "start" button broke off, so I managed to whittle down a close peg to do the job.... then it started leaking water all over the electrical parts.... It also made a noise like a 1989 3.7 litre Toyota Land Cruiser idling with the choke out. You had to turn up the TV 2 notches and shut the two doors between the lounge and the kitchen just so you could hear the telly.
And then, after at least two years of putting up with this monstrosity my wife brought home a new one... the one in the left on this picture. A Sunbeam. Well.... she wont tell me what it cost, but I dont' care, you can listen to the radio in the same room ! Right now that Sunbeam kettle is up there with my favourite things.

What should be done with the man that designed my previous kettle

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