Bayview

We went exploring over the Xmas holidays and ventured down to a trail network just south of Brisbane called Bayview, aka Redlands. The locals have obviously been building and riding here for a while, but recently it's all become legitimate and the trail fairies are able to build some new trails to link up the existing & bedded down singletrack. It's great down there & well worth a visit.

The trail head is by a chicken farm - if you park here leave a couple of car widths to the main gate as they regularly bring semi-trailers through

 The trails themselves weave through a mix of different countryside, from grass tree forests 

 to plantation planting,

and narrow channels cutting through what I think is some kind of invasive growth 

The variety is mirrored in the trail surfaces, from typical Queensland looseness to slightly springy loam. One thing that is consistent is flow, with most of the trails well built and leaving you wanting more at the end. And there is always more - we rode around 31km and probably less than a km of that was on fire-roads, and there were whole areas we were too buggered to explore.

 

With all that interweaving singletrack navigation can be a bit tricky. All of the trails we rode were signed but only 100m or so into the track, which I thought was a good way of reassuring you that you weren't lost but not making the navigation too easy. 

It's strange riding somewhere where you don't know the history of the names - I'm sure there's a good reason for this, but I'm not sure I want to know what it is...

So it's definitely worth a look, but make sure you take a map or a guide - or both...

Thanks to Gordy for the navigation, Jaman for the directions and most importantly the local trail fairies for some excellent work!

Hipsters love beer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWBV7yKWhWE

Fait Accompli

No real story behind this tune, just one I was listening to today...there's a 'proper' video out there with slightly better sound and appearances by a random sheep, but I prefer this one as I was in the crowd for this set in '92. I was a little bit closer to the stage than whoever recorded this, close enough for Toni to look me in the eyes whilst she was singing - or so it felt to my 22 yr old self....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVRct5evwrc

 

If you're wondering about the sound quality, there was a compilation CD released after the festival with 'mixing-desk' recordings of each of the major artists that performed. The video uploader must have taken that and synched it with his video. Cool stuff!  

The hills are alive with the howl of canti's...

The first production mountain bikes used a style of brake called a cantilever - these gave the mud clearance that was needed but unless they were set up by a professional they didn't work that well and they howled like a banshee. As opposed to when they were set up by a professional, where they just howled like a banshee. I remember walking my 1990 Hard Rock Sport down a beautiful flowing trail in a tranquil valley in the Lake District because I was embarrassed about the noise I was putting out and worried that I'd give kids in adjacent villages nightmares.

Twenty plus years on technology has moved on, but you still find canti's on road-style bikes that need wider tyre clearances. I took my canti-equipped cyclocross bike out on the singletrack last night and I'm happy to report that they're just as sketchy as ever...

Rigid forks, skinny tyres inflated to 60psi, narrow drop bars and weak brakes lead to an interesting ride. Line choice is everything, although sometimes as you ping around the trail it feels like the bike is making that choice for you, and don't even consider that short-cut across the off-cambered roots. It's a mentally absorbing way to ride as you have to be very aware of what's coming up. I was feeling beaten up by the end but both the bike & I survived, and I was pretty happy as I managed to ride almost everything on an 18k singletrack / fireroad loop that I normally ride on a mountain bike, the exceptions being half of the rock garden above and a position-critical line after a steep-ish drop that I wasn't sure I could pull off and wasn't prepared to commit to. My times were generally around 20% - 40% slower than my fastest times on a mountain bike, but I managed to beat a personal record on one fire-road climb and come within a second of another on a singletrack climb.

Now all I need is my wrists to stop throbbing and the tinnitus to clear...

Yeasty frothy goodness

Back in the day before Louis Pasteur no-one really knew what yeast was or how it worked. They just knew that if you stored certain foodstuffs in a certain way in a certain place then magical things would happen and you'd end up with beer / mead / wine / bread / more beer. The unknown ingredient was simply known as godisgoode 'bicause it cometh of the grete grace of God'.

This time-lapse video showing 'open-fermentation' brewing at Sierra Nevada brewing company helps explain why it was held in such regard. This is a traditional style of brewing that is still used by several breweries because it's easy to skim and re-use the yeast, it decreases carbon dioxide pressure on the yeast (which helps the flavour profile) and the kit is easier & cheaper to maintain than a sealed vessel with an airlock. . I'd love to try something similar, but at the minute I'd just end up with a brew-bin full of ants & lizards...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xClXKMhcFr0

Jarringly cool

One of the cool things of the moment is to use Mason jars as serving implements, and as usual we're surfing the zeitgeist in Mt Gravatt. Perfect for relishing a Summer Ale brewed by a local artisan craft brewer

Although it works equally well holding a gin-based cocktail...

Although to keep true to type these photos should be being posted on Instagram...

Escaping the sky-bully

The forecast for today was worse than yesterday - Forty-one degrees, to be precise. When the temperatures get that high there's only one thing to do - flee to the beach. it wasn't long before we had a tidy little setup which gave plenty of shade

whilst leaving us a decent view of the action

Sadly the surf was pretty messy which made it impossible to catch anything but breaking waves, with the subsequent sand-burn to the knees. A shame, because we now have a 7' mini-Malibu in our quiver

We used this on New Years day and both of us managed to get to our feet a couple of times, for the first time in just under 10 years for both of us. Take that Sky Bully!