Kylie and I went to the Circus on the weekend, the 3 Ring Circus that is.

What a top day out, the course was fantastic, taking in all the best bits of Wingello including the awesome 'Tangles' trail. The vibe of the event and out on course was more 'fun' than 'racing' which made it a nice relaxing ride. Although the race was only a couple of hours long, we spent most of the day there catching up with friends and hanging out at the event centre, where awesome hot chocolate, pancakes and burgers were going down a treat.

At the end of the day Kylie and Anne ended up taking out 3rd place in Female Teams, which was was a pretty awesome reward for a solid effort, and it meant we headed home to Kinglseys and Chocloate Puddings for a celebratory dinner, yum! :P

This is an event I'll have on my calendar every year from now on, it was awesome fun!

Here's a photo of Simon riding Stromlo with me back in 2002, we'd both just gotten our first dual suspension bikes, they might have weighed 15 kilos and had v-brakes, but we loved them!

We used to ride together twice a week, and we never trained or raced, we just got on our bikes and mucked about in the forrest, having a great laugh, in t-shirts and shorts and sneakers. If we felt like having a chat, we'd drop the bikes and chat for hours (sometimes we'd spend more time talking that pedalling). If the hills were steep, we walked up them with a laugh (well, I walked, the others laughed, at me ;)). We never rode bikes in the rain or cold, and in winter we'd go do something else like play squash, and the only time we rode on the road was in a car.

On the weekend I went for a little ride with some of my mates...

All of those mates might have been accomplished ultra endurance racers, some of them overall podium takers at Solo Nationals even, and the little ride, might have been a 200km race to the beach, then back again the next day ;)

It was a great weekend, heaps of fun and two days on the bike is always awesome. A full write up and photos are here.

I've just gotten back from racing the Mawson Marathon, pairing up with my arch nemesis Brett Bellchambers to take on 360km of the Flinders Ranges.

We worked really well together and when one of us was low, the other would take the lead and tow, and vice versa. Doing an endurance race with a friend made it all the more fun, especially a clown like Brett :D

We were hoping to hang on to the lead teams, but a flat tyre and broken chain in the first couple of hours had us off the back, while the other teams bunched up and worked together against the wind. This never worried us though and we just rode our race at our own pace, soaking up the gorgeous views and sharing many laughs.

He made it, with EFI status intact, incredible!

What a journey, 12,000km over 4 months.
I am so jealous :)

From Dan's final blog entry:

So. The TDA is done and dusted. After four months, it seems incredible to be in Cape Town.

A week after the race finished I am still adjusting. Only now am I starting to realise that it is over. 120 days might not seem like a long time in the scheme of things, but it is more than enough to be habit forming. Most of me still expects to be getting on the bike tomorrow. To have my food cooked by someone tomorrow. To be in a tent tomorrow. To be drinking a litre of thick, sweet coffee tomorrow. To be seeing all the TDA people tomorrow.

But its not going to be like that.

I decided to be a good husband and take Kylie away for a romantic weekend away, to sunny Nowra. Amazingly there just happened to be an 8 hour race on there, and I'd happened to pack all my cycling gear, what a coincidence :) hehe

A perfect sunny 20'C day greeted the willing as we assembled on the start line. With half the field still facing the wrong way trying to get in position and ready to go, the gun goes off and we're away! It was madness and confusion trying to get through the crowd of people all facing the wrong way, and I only got in four pedal strokes before becoming a victim of the foray, clashing bars with a fellow rider, binned into the dirt head first. Quickly getting the bike off me and jumping back up before 150 hurried mountain bikes rode over my head, I got going again, looking like a complete idiot. Not my best start!

My last hard tail was my fist ever mountain bike, over a decade ago now. The whole bike cost less than some single components on my current bikes and when I saved up and moved to a dually a couple of years later, I swore I would never ride a hard tail again. With the Mawson Marathon only a few weeks away and my team mate for the event, Brett Bellchambers, already on a hard tail 29er, it only made sense that I should ride on one too, so it was time to get my hands on a Giant XTC 29er and try one out...

I love the look of this bike, they have gone to a lot of trouble with the little details, like the hints of blue to match the blue frame paint, from the blue seat clamp to blue spoke nipples and even blue cable end caps! It really makes the bike look awesome I think.

Well, finally after months of research and quotes and installs, we have gotten there and our solar hot water and PV array is installed and operating.

The solar hot water disappointed me at first; the day it was installed was cloudy and raining and I was noticing on the Cent-a-Meter it was using the electric booster too often. That day, we used almost as much electricity as we normally do and I was wondering if I had made the right call installing it. The next day though, was sunny, and it didn't use the booster much at all, and as I had hoped, our energy consumption dropped dramatically (30% less power used than on the previous day).

With the most serious competition rolling up for this race that had in years; including the current World Champ, a former National Champ, the top 5 from last year and some new big guns that have been on the overall podium at state 24 solo races, this was never going to be an easy day at the office.

Instead of worrying about all those big names, Brett and I declared a grudge match that would be the final round of the "best of three" McAvoy vs Bellchambers races; the decider, after a win each at two previous races.

Brett proved far too strong though and I'm afraid there wasn't even a resemblance of a fight, it was all one way, with him lifting and going after much bigger fish; which he fried, ate and spat back out!

He put down an inspiring ride, it was awesome to watch and it's one I won't forget for a long time! I on the other hand was left to lick my wounds and settle for 2nd place in our category and 7th over all, down two spots on last year.