210/365 – This is the most common reason why Liz is late when she walks places.
3 comments | July 29, 2010 at 6:46 pm
And it’s also the reason why I dislike walking in the Inner West with Liz. She always seems to find kitties to say hi to… and that means we always end up being late to places/events.
Damn us living in what would have to be the most densely populated cat region in all of Sydney.
208/365 – Exhaustion
no comments | July 27, 2010 at 11:35 pm
This is the face of a Liz after she has worked an 11 hour day and seen Stephen Fry at the Opera House. The realisation that she has to be awake to do it all again (sans Stephen Fry) in 6 hours is a bad thing. Fun stuff!
207/365 – Good Hair Day
one comment | July 26, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Sometimes you have a good hair day, sometimes you don’t. Today was the best good hair day I’ve had for a while.
Wait. Shouldn’t that photo be landscape?! Crazy!!
206/365 – Newtown, Waterfall, Cronulla, Kurnell, Newtown.
6 comments | July 25, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Today I rode from Newtown to Waterfall, then came home via Cronulla and Kurnell. The morning started much like this…
Don’t you ever complain about the noise in your dSLR til you’ve used an Nokia e71 in low light. Anyway, I was on the bike by 5:30am, which meant I’d be riding the first hour or so in the dark. The Ayups were brilliant as always.
That was the view from Tom Uglys Bridge looking towards Captain Cook Bridge. Yeah, I can’t make out much detail either.
Winding my way up the hill toward Kirrawee, it was starting to get more light. Sorta.
I stopped a few kilometres short of Waterfall to take this photo, cause well, the landscape was awesome. See that over exposed bit? There were brilliant rays of sunshine in there and the contrast in the clouds was intense. Needless to say, the plastic lens on the e71 didn’t quite do it justice. Stopping to take that photo did let some quick roadies overtake me though, so I spent the rest of the time to Waterfall attempting to catch them. Then I used some more italics.
Oh hai Waterfall.
The next stop was the Whale Lookout in the National Park at Kurnell. This was made a little more difficult as the Sutherland 2 Surf had commandeered the entire Kingsway. No matter, I made it back on track with minimal detours and headed to the Whale Lookout, channelling my inner time trialist.
Just as a side note, road bikes shouldn’t get that dirty, but the road was wet from Sutherland to Waterfall and back so plenty of dirt was flicked up by my wheels. I then set sail for home… via the awesome cafe in Kurnell. I’d have taken photos of the bacon and egg roll I ate, but there was no time as it was inhaled in a matter of seconds. Oops.
The most excitement I had on the way home was seeing my speedo clock over 100kms and still having the presence of mind to take a photo. Ahh memories. I time trialled back to Shark Park, then took the City Cycle Route to get me back to the Airport. A quick jaunt through Sydney Park and I was back home.
That photo was taken… somewhere… so it can go here! But now for the bit you’ve been waiting to see… me after riding the Salsa for one hundred and thirteen kilometres.
Tired++. I’m going to sleep now. Night.
204/365 – Kitty Bliss
4 comments | July 23, 2010 at 9:59 am
The sure fire way to make Train happy on a cold morning is to open our front door so the sunlight can stream in. If you do this, you’ll get a happy cat that moves from spot to spot in the sunshine, constantly cleaning herself and rolling around scenting the floor. Kitty Bliss.
In other news… how long is Train’s tongue?!
My Definitive 2010 Kona Unit Review
7 comments | July 22, 2010 at 6:50 pm
My Kona Unit has gone through a myriad of changes since I bought it in November last year. It’s still an insanely fun bike to ride and I’m pleased with how versatile it’s become. Greeny is my race bike, all mountain trail bike, single speed bike, down hill bike and I’ve even thought about converting it to a mean cyclocross bike. Sure, it might not perform as well in each of those disciplines as a dedicated bike would, but it does everything well enough for my talents.
The Ride
You sit up tall compared to a 26″ mountain bike and the front wheel seems to stick out impossibly far past the handlebars. Riding a 29′er is like driving a tonka truck when you’ve been used to matchbox cars, the big wheels just bounce and skip over small bumps which a 26″ wheeled bike would get held up on. Some people say that a 29′er compared to 26″ is like having 1″ of rear suspension and while I don’t 100% agree with that, I definitely believe the bigger wheels smooth the trail more.
Occasionally on rougher trails I do wish I’d spent the extra money and gotten a 29′er with short travel rear suspension, but for the most part a hard tail is fine. On the flip side, I’m positively ecstatic I got a hard tail when standing and stomping pedals to get up small pinch climbs. The combination of big wheels and supple steel frame does well to take the edges off the small bumps, so it’s the larger ones you’ve got to watch out for.
Wheels and Tyres
A month or two back I got Tom from Hell on Wheels to build me up what would hopefully be a fairly light but rugged 29er wheelset. I’m happy to say that after a few rides they’re performing brilliantly. DT Swiss 240s hubs laced to Velocity Blunts with DT Swiss Super Comp spokes. The total weight was around the 1800gram mark, which puts them in the ‘reliable but moderately light weight‘ category.
The new wheels also saw me with a cassette based rear hub with buttery soft splines. Unfortunately this means whenever I convert Greeny back to single speed I’ll be stuck using the original rear wheel. No dramas though, it’s a tough as nails rear wheel… even if the bearings do play up a little.
I was less than impressed with the Kenda SB8s which came standard. For the rear the’re fine, but up front they struggled for grip in the sandy conditions prevalent in Sydney. A small amount of internet research later and I was running a WTB Exiwolf. 2.3″ wide, waaaay deeper and chunkier tread pattern yet still fairly fast rolling. Once again I was happy going round corners at speed.
Brakes
The Avid BB7’s which came with Greeny were okay, but nothing special. On long descents they’d lose power and I’d get sore forearms, so very early on I upgraded them to Avid Elixir CR’s which had worked so well on Whitey. Last week I cut and bled the lines which was surprisingly easy and tidied up the front end immensely. With the upgraded G3 rotors bolted to the wheels, I’m very happy with my braking setup. Good modulation, long pad life and always plenty of stopping power.
Forks
When I bought Greeny I honestly thought I would give the rigid Kona P2 Forks a go. Sure, I’d be slower across rocky terrain, but I’d have a new appreciation of mountain biking and feel at one with the trail. Sadly it only took one lap around Manly Dam to change my mind. A few weeks later, Torpedo7 had a sale on Fox F29 RLC’s and I never looked back from the rigid forks. Initially they had 120mm of travel which I tried to make work for a few weeks, but it was clear that the bike’s geometry messed up, so they were slammed to 80mm.
The forks have continued to be good, at 80mm they suit the bike’s geometry brilliantly. I’d say there’s an extra half a kilo or so of weight over the rigid P2 forks, but that’s well worth it on my aging bones.
Drive Train
It’s true, I’ve wimped out and now have a 1×9 setup on Greeny. It was inevitable really. Smashing myself up hills in 32×18 gearing was great when I was fit, but it hurt so so much when I wasn’t. A 1×9 drive train setup is far more practical and negates the endless need to set up the bike for different tracks.
The parts were taken from Whitey’s old geared setup. SRAM x.9 rear derailleur, SRAM x.0 shifter, SRAM PG980 11-34 cassette, SRAM PC991 chain, Shimano XT cranks and the original 32T noname chain ring. You’ll notice a lot of SRAM components in there. I like SRAM stuff. It’s got that oomph in the shifting.
The chainguide is an MRP 1.x which I was initially sceptical about, but the chain has never dropped so it’s certainly proving itself.
Cockpit
Again, it’s the standard cockpit from Whitey which has made the transfer to Greeny. For my ass it’s a Thomson 27.2mm x 400mm layback post and SDG Bel Air saddle. Up the front it includes a set of Raceface Deus XC 25.4mm low rise bars, Raceface 80mm Evolve XC stem and ODI Rogue Grips. The spacers on top of the flipped stem and a high seat position maximises pedal stroke and makes for an aggressive position. But that’s okay cause it reminds me of the Salsa Casseroll’s geometry.
The Future
As I said at the start of this post, I’m extremely happy with the way Greeny is currently setup. That said, I guess the n+1 bikes formula also applies to parts cause I do have an idea of what I’d buy for Greeny if I won the lottery.
First step would be tubeless tyres/wheels. I can accept that tubeless setups might be better due to lower rotational weights and the ability to run lower pressures. I’m just not sure it’s worth all the messing about. Time shall tell if tubeless setups become mainstream and reliable enough for me to try them out on Greeny.
The other thing I’ve considered is getting myself a set of road bike bars and brifters to make myself one hell of a tough cyclocross bike. I’d also switch back to the P2 Fork and BB7 Brakes to make it happen. Maybe it’ll happen. Maybe it won’t. Time shall tell.
Other Posts
Wow, you made it to the end of the post! Well, I’ve blogged a fair bit about Greeny, so feel free to check out the following threads if you want more details on my Greeny build.
November 2009 – 2010 Kona Unit Single Speed.
February 2010 – Kona Unit Update.
March 2010 – Greeny’s Sliding Dropouts.
June 2010 – Greeny’s Got Updates.
201/365 – Gritty
no comments | July 20, 2010 at 10:00 pm
That darn wife of mine got to sleep early tonight. Something to do with a hectic day at work, glass of wine and delicious home cooked pie for dinner. Sadly this means you get left with me for the 365…. and this is the best I could come up with.
It’s noisey, blurry and the subject matter ain’t all that grand. Enjoy!
80kms of ouch.
4 comments | July 19, 2010 at 9:43 am
Yesterday I went for a road ride with a few BMU guys. As previously detailed, I’ve been struggling to find my legs after the wedding & general winter laziness. The route was the same as the KoM one a while back; Hell on Wheels, Sutherland, Cronulla, Kurnell, Hell on Wheels. And while there aren’t many hills on that course, it was with no real surprise that I was extremely lethargic and the last one to summit all the early climbs.
Fast forward to about the 60km mark and I was feeling very good. Perhaps it was the enormous bacon & egg roll and coke I’d devoured for morning tea, or maybe it was that I’d said shut up legs enough, but the last part of the ride was really enjoyable.
Jing commented to me that I looked comfortable on the bike and he’s right; I’ve got the Salsa set up what I consider ‘just right‘ for my body’s geometry and the type of riding I do. It’s always a good sign when after an 80km ride you have no pain in your back, arms, hands, neck or shoulders. It’s also a good sign when your legs are positively smashed.
One final note, the recently fitted bullhorns were once again great. There were a few times when punching into a sizable heading I was yearning for drops, but the ‘horns will be sticking around.
Sometimes She Bakes: Peanut Butter & Chocolate Brownies
July 29, 2010 at 8:01 am | 3 comments
Last week I received David Lebovitz’ book Ready for Dessert from the Book Depository. The first thing I did when I got it home was pick a recipe and try it out. Of course it involved chocolate.
Recipe adapted from David Lebovitz’ Ready for Dessert, ‘Roberts Absolute Best Brownies’.
Ingredients
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
225g bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup call purpose flour
4-5 tablespoons peanut butter (to taste, really)Method
Preheat oven to 175C. Line the inside of a 9 inch square pan with baking paper or foil, allowing excess to extend beyond the edges of the pan. Lightly grease the foil/baking paper with butter or non stick cooking spray.
In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter, then add the chocolate. Heat until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar and vanilla until combined. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
Add the flour and stir energetically for one full minute (and it really means one full minute) until the batter looses it’s graininess, becomes smooth and glossy and pulls away a bit from the sides of the saucepan. Stir through the peanut butter.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the center feels almost set – about 30 minutes.
These brownies will keep well for up to 4 days, and can be frozen for 1 month.
(As you can see, I baked these in my mini loaf pan as well which meant I had to reduce the baking time).
These are rich, chocolate’y, peanutbutter’y brownies that won’t last very long. Really, really good with a smothering of cream straight out of the oven. Nom.
209/365 – Wet Hair
July 28, 2010 at 8:09 pm | no comments
This is my hair. It’s wet because I washed it. Yay me!
Daring Bakers July 2010: Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Cake
July 27, 2010 at 5:23 am | 5 comments
The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.
This months challenge being based around ice cream (of all things) did make me laugh. Not only has it been a pretty cold winter here in Sydney, but I work in an ice cream factory, so it seemed like a lot of effort to be making ice cream when I could just bring some home from work.
Having said that, the recipe I used is rather different to the stuff we make at work – which is super premium and pretty delicious.
I made the recipe provided (as always), and was surprised at how easily it all came together – especially considering this was my first time making swiss rolls – and tiny ones at that. I halved the entire recipe as I didn’t want a large dessert. It ended up being 2.5 mini cakes, moulded in individual serve pudding bowls.
You’ll notice in the above photo the ice cream on the bottom hasn’t fully set – that was because Jarod couldn’t wait to start ‘taste testing’. Neither of us were fond of the vanilla ice cream or the fudge, but we both agreed that the chocolate ice cream was tasty. In fact, I’ve made the chocolate version again once more to use up the left over cream.
Many thanks to Sunita for the excellent challenge!
Swiss roll ice cream cake (inspired by the recipe of the same name from the Taste of Home website)
Swiss rolls
Preparation time:10 minutes
Baking time: 10-12 minutes
Rolling and cooling time: at least 30 minutes
Filling: 5-8 minutes
Filling and rolling: 5-10 minutesIngredients
6 medium sized eggs
225 gms caster sugar + extra for rolling
45gms plain flour + 40gm natural unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted together
30ml boiling water
a little oil for brushing the pans
For the filling
500 mls whipping cream
1 vanilla pod, cut into small pieces of about ½ cm (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
70gms of caster sugar
Method
Pre heat the oven at 200 deg C /400 deg F approximately. Brush the baking pans ( 11 inches by 9 inches ) with a little oil and line with greaseproof baking paper. If you have just one pan, bake one cake and then let the pan cool completely before using it for the next cake.
In a large mixing bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat till very thick; when the beaters are lifted, it should leave a trail on the surface for at least 10 seconds.
Add the flour mixture, in three batches and fold in gently with a spatula. Fold in the water.
Divide the mixture among the two baking pans and spread it out evenly, into the corners of the pans.
Place a pan in the centre of the pre heated oven and bake for about 10-12 minutes or till the centre is springy to the touch.
Spread a kitchen towel on the counter and sprinkle a little caster sugar over it.
Turn the cake on to the towel and peel away the baking paper. Trim any crisp edges.
Starting from one of the shorter sides, start to make a roll with the towel going inside. Cool the wrapped roll on a rack, seam side down.
Repeat the same for the next cake as well.
Grind together the vanilla pieces and sugar in a food processer till nicely mixed together. If you are using vanilla extract, just grind the sugar on its own and then add the sugar and extract to the cream.
In a large bowl, add the cream and vanilla-sugar mixture and beat till very thick.
Divide the cream mixture between the completely cooled cakes.
Open the rolls and spread the cream mixture, making sure it does not go right to the edges (a border of ½ an inch should be fine).
Roll the cakes up again, this time without the towel. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge till needed, seam side down.
The vanilla ice cream
Preparation time: 5 minutes+freezing
I have made the ice cream without an ice cream maker.
Ingredients
625 ml whipping cream
1 vanilla bean, minced or 1 tsp vanilla extract
115gms granulated sugar
Method
Grind together the sugar and vanilla in a food processor. In a mixing bowl, add the cream and vanilla –sugar mixture and whisk lightly till everything is mixed together. If you are using the vanilla extract, grind the sugar on its own and then and the sugar along with the vanilla extract to the cream.
Pour into a freezer friendly container and freeze till firm around the edges. Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.
The Hot fudge sauce
Preparation time: 2 minutes
Cooking time: 2 minutesIngredients
230gms caster sugar
24gms natural unsweetened cocoa powder
15gms cornflour/cornstarch
355ml water
14gms butter
5 ml vanilla extract
Method
In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornflour and water.
Place the pan over heat, and stir constantly, till it begins to thicken and is smooth (for about 2 minutes).
Remove from heat and mix in the butter and vanilla. Keep aside to cool.
The chocolate ice cream
Preparation time: 5 minutes + freezing
Ingredients
500 ml whipping cream
230gms caster sugar
24 gms natural unsweetened cocoa powder
Method
Grind together the sugar and the cocoa powder in a food processor .
In a saucepan, add all the ingredients and whisk lightly.
Place the pan over heat and keep stirring till it begins to bubble around the edges.
Remove from heat and cool completely before transferring to a freezer friendly container till firm around the edges. If you are using an ice cream maker, churn the ice cream according to the manufacturer’s instruction, after the mixture has cooled completely.
Remove from the freezer, beat till smooth and return to the freezer. Do this 3-4 times and then set completely.
Assembly
Cut the Swiss rolls into 20 equal slices ( approximately 2 cms each ).
Cover the bottom and sides of the bowl in which you are going to set the dessert with cling film/plastic wrap.
Arrange two slices at the bottom of the pan, with their seam sides facing each other. Arrange the Swiss roll slices up the bowl, with the seam sides facing away from the bottom, to cover the sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till the slices are firm (at least 30 minutes).
Soften the vanilla ice cream. Take the bowl out of the freezer, remove the cling film cover and add the ice cream on top of the cake slices. Spread it out to cover the bottom and sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till firm ( at least 1 hour)
Add the fudge sauce over the vanilla ice cream, cover and freeze till firm . ( at least an hour)
Soften the chocolate ice cream and spread it over the fudge sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4-5 hours till completely set .
Remove the plastic cover, and place the serving plate on top of the bowl. Turn it upside down and remove the bowl and the plastic lining. If the bowl does not come away easily, wipe the outsides of the bowl with a kitchen towel dampened with hot water. The bowl will come away easily.
Keep the cake out of the freezer for at least 10 minutes before slicing, depending on how hot your region is. Slice with a sharp knife, dipped in hot water.
Sometimes She Bakes: Mandarin Syrup Cake
July 25, 2010 at 6:13 pm | 2 comments
While walking through the farmers markets yesterday, we walked past a stall selling mandarins. Just mandarins. I started walking towards the stall. Never mind that I don’t like mandarins. And neither does Jarod. I came back with a bag of 10 mandarins for $5.
Jarod asked what I was going to do with them. “Bake something!” I said. And that was the end of the conversation.
Later that afternoon, I started looking for something to bake involving mandarins. But not mandarin bits because I can’t deal with the texture of them. So I present the only thing I could find: Mandarin Syrup Mini Loaf Thingies!
Recipe adapted from The Circle.
Ingredients
The cakey bit200g caster sugar
200g almond meal
1½ teaspoons baking powder
200ml vegetable oil
4 eggs
the zest of 3 large mandarinsthis counts as mandarin bits, so I left this outThe syrupy bit
The juice of 3 mandarins I actually used all 10 of my mandarins…
The juice of 1/2 a lemon I didn’t have any lemons, so left this out
100g sugar
1 cinnamon stickMethod
Pre-heat the oven to 160ºC. Grease a 20cm cake tin and set aside.
Mix together the dry ingredients: sugar, almond meal and baking powder. Then add the oil, eggs and
mandarin zest andbeat well with a wooden spoon.Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 40-50 minutes.
While the cake is baking, make your syrup.
Bring all the ingredients gently to the boil in a pan, stirring until the sugar has dissolved and simmer for three minutes
Allow the syrup to cool.
Take the cake out of the oven, and let cool for 5 or so minutes before turning out onto a plate. Pierce holes in the cake with a skewer while still warm, then pour your (hopefully now cooled) syrup all over.
Cut a slice and eat your noms.
Syrup soaked cake tastes best a day after it is made and will keep in the fridge covered in foil for 3-4 days.
Clearly I didn’t cook this in a cake tin – I used my shiny new mini loaf pan, which of course brought the cooking time down.
I couldn’t win Jarod over on the taste of mandarins, but he has had two mini loaves so far (the first was a ‘taste test’ and the second one was eaten ‘purely for it’s nutritional value’).
I find this cake really, really sweet – maybe something to do with my ten mandarins instead of the recommended three. I also wish I had some cream in the house to eat with them.
Will I buy mandarins again? Probably not. But it was worth it to try something new.
205/365 – A Day of Things (also Noice-ities)
July 24, 2010 at 9:37 pm | 4 comments
Seeing as I’m using this as my noice-ities as well, I will talk about yesterday: The Day of the Tax Return. Both Jarod and I got our tax returns back and we were very excited. That’s about it really. But it was a nice way to start the day.
This morning, we got up super early and went down to the Farmers Markets to get our fruit & vegies. And double jonquils earlicheer.
We also spoke with someone from Sydney City Farm and were impressed. A farm in Sydney city? How cool would that be? The council is on side, they’re just looking for a location at the moment. I think it’s a pretty awesome idea.
Anyway, then we headed over to Vic’s Meat for their fortnightly market day. We’d never been before, so didn’t know what to expect. It was pretty awesome, actually. All the butchers were friendly and helpful and the prices were pretty good too. Provided you’re okay with the smell of raw meat and random dead pigs/rabbits on show, you should go down and check it out in a fortnights time.
We also got given a free chicken. We’re still not sure why, but I totally baked it for dinner. AND it was cooked all the way through. Not bad for a first timer, eh? (Jarod was incharge of the ‘extra flavour’ department, hence the rosemary and garlic).
But before we had dinner we went and visited the awesome-sized kitty stencil and took a photo of me with it.
Jarod was meant to be in the photo too, but it got a bit tricky.
On this wall there’s been so many kitty stencils, but they keep being buffered. After the most recent buffer, the artist put up this one single GIANT kitty that makes me smile. The normal kitties are, well, normal kitty sized. As you can see, this one is Liz sized. Perfect for giant cuddles. If it was real.
And tomorrow we shall sleep.
Read about everyone else’s noice stuff over this way.
My Place & Yours: What’s on your fridge.
July 19, 2010 at 6:13 pm | 3 comments
Well, not a whole lot compared to what it used to be.
Our garbage bin roster, the marrickville council bins calendar, a photo of him, a photo of me, a takeaway menu or three, some recipes and a bottle opener.
Exciting stuff. There’s nothing on the freezer bit (at the bottom) as we try keep hanging stuff out of Train’s bitey reach.
Play along at helloowl.
