Bike Riding, Statistically Speaking.

11:23 am, March 12th, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Posted in bikes, boythings, roundups, whinging by Jarod

The summary of this post is that I’ve been riding a hell of a lot more in 2010 than I was in 2009.

The long version includes some quickfire stats…

• In the first 70 days of this year, I’ve ridden half of what I did in 365 days last year. (1230kms for 70 days of this year, 2389kms for the whole of last year)
• Last year I did 101 rides in the 365 days of the year for an average of 23kms per ride. This year I’ve done 37 rides in the 70 days already gone for an average of 34kms per ride.
• If I continue at my current pace (which I won’t, winter for one will slow me down) I’ll be heading towards 6000kms for the year. Truth is that I’ll be cutting back in a big way after Dirtworks in May.
• The Salsa is still my favourite bike by far. More than 60% of my kilometres this year have been on it. Need to start to get on Greeny more.
• As the following graph shows, I’ve made a distinct effort to ride further in the one sitting than I did in 2009. In 2010, 40-50km rides are the order of the day, whereas 20-30km rides were more common in 2009.
  

I’m still going okay with that fine balance of not riding enough (and being horribly unfit) & riding too much (and over training). As Paul Petch says, training is the easy part, it’s forcing yourself to rest that’s difficult.

This week in movies

8:39 am, March 11th, 2010 | No Comments »
Posted in boythings, mooovies, roundups, whinging by Jarod

I’ve been watching a few movies of late. Lets have two quick reviews.

The Hurt Locker
Now I’ll be honest here… I really really don’t understand the hype. To me it’s just another Hollywood war movie glorifying war. Jarod’s rating? 2 inconceivable bomb defusings out of 5. I can’t embed the trailer, but if you’d like to waste your bandwidth, head here.

Men Who Stare At Goats
This is a very very strange movie. I saw this after watching the documentary of the same name a few days earlier and I’ve come to the conclusion that to see them the other way around would be disastrous. Always get to know the truth* behind a story before watching the Hollywood movie based on it.

It would be fair to say it’s a modern day, semi true HotShots. I give Men Who Stare At Goats 3 conspiracies out of 5 (if only for Ewan McGregor constantly talking about Jedi Warriors).

* I use the term truth loosely here. Cause lets face it, we’re talking military conspiracies here.

Tron Legacy
Not so much that I’ve watched it, but more so that I’m still eagerly awaiting it’s release later this year. Another official trailer got released yesterday…. so enjoy!

27/365 – Someone got a haircut

8:04 pm, January 27th, 2010 | No Comments »
Posted in 365, boythings, photography, roundups by Jarod

Pretty sad when a haircut is the highlight of your day… and thus the 365 entry of the day.

13/365 – The Two Faces of Jarod

8:35 pm, January 13th, 2010 | 7 Comments »
Posted in 365, local, photography, roundups by Jarod

The photo of me on the left, could’ve been taken yesterday. The photo of me on the right, was definitely taken today. The difference? I’m smiling now cause today I resigned from the job I had from the last four and a bit years.

I won’t go into details, but it ended up being not much fun. So after much debate and internal monologues I decided resigning was the best course of action. And sure enough, now I’m more like the Jarod on the right, happy happy happy.

And no, I don’t have anything else lined up at this stage. For now I’ll be enjoying a short break. After that, jarodandlizproductions.com might see some action… and at some point I’ll go back to full time employment.

2/365 – Liz was sad

7:21 pm, January 2nd, 2010 | No Comments »
Posted in 365, boythings, local, roundups by Jarod

Firstly sad cause we visited the Dentist. She got one (massive) filling done that took what seemed like forever. After being home from that for a half hour or so, we headed back to Dentistland cause the filling wasn’t feeling right. A little more grindy and she was good to go.

A short shopping trip in the city later, we returned home to David Tennant in his final Doctor Who. It was a sad/fitting end, or so we’re told.

At the end of the day, Liz had no more tears left… and this was the result.

2009 in bikes.

6:15 pm, December 28th, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Posted in bikes, boythings, roundups by Jarod

Seeing as Liz has gone and gotten all statistical on the year’s ass, I figured I’d do some number crunching of my own…

For the last year and a bit I’ve been keeping a diary of where/when/how long I’ve been riding places… and it turns out I’ve ridden for 145(ish) hours. In that time I rode for just short of 2800kms. Not too shabby for a year where I got lazy for large slabs of time.

– 879kms on Whitey the mountain bike of fury.  During the year and it’s been both a single speed and a full geared bike.  I also rode Whitey in both the Highland Fling and Dirtworks… and in both races he performed flawlessly, giving me zero mechanical issues.
– 1515kms of awesome Salsa Casseroll‘ness (161kms of that using fixed gear).  Can’t get over how much I’m still enjoying the Salsa.  It’s simply a joy to jump on, and cruise for a few hours at a time. Indeed of late I’ve just been ‘cruising’ laps of Centennial Park.
– 85kms on Greeny the Tonka Truck of my stable.   My venture back into single speeding and the world of 29′er wheels. The 85kms might not seem like heaps, but it’s not too shabby seeing as I’ve only owned him for the last month or so.
– 309kms on the ill fated & now sold Gary Fisher.  It was a good bike (made better by single speeding it), but sadly just a size too big for me.

Also of note was the 571kms (of the total 2800kms) were commuting to and from work (that’s about the equivalent of riding to work for three weeks straight). That’s one number I want to get a whole heap higher in 2010.

Speaking of 2010, I’ve already registered for the 50km Dirtworks, and I’m also in a 4 man team for the Mont. Should make for an interesting first half of the year. Well, if I can get my backside into gear and get a bit more training in…

The Race to Two Hundred.

8:41 pm, December 20th, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in bikes, boythings, internets, roundups by Jarod

It’s not been official until now, but Liz and I are racing to 200 posts on this, our humble blog. As it stands I’m at 188 (189 with this post) and Liz is at 186. That puts me three ahead with eleven to go, but I’m still behind the eight ball cause Liz has stacks of momentum (and won’t stop baking stuff!). She’s made 10 or the last 15 posts for pete’s sake.

Now in a slight retrospective, these are a few of the stand out posts (in my mind at least) that I’ve made.

2010 Kona Unit Single Speed

Gary Fisher Cobia, made into a single speed

The Salsa Casseroll Single Speed

The Giant Iguana Single Speed Frame

Strange that all of them are about single speed bikes. Well… not that strange I spose.

Pearl & Marmalade

6:21 pm, November 16th, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in geekery, girlthings, internets, photography, roundups by Liz

I have a thing for nice cards. I collect them. They are all given away eventually, so I suppose it’s not ‘collecting’ as such, more saving them for the right occasion. Recently I came across Pearl & Marmalade on Etsy and purchased a whole bunch of their cards.

Of course, I’m not going to show you them all because then if I were send you one it wouldn’t be a nice surprise anymore, would it?

Because I purchased so many (and they’re very, very nice people), I also got a few extra cards as a bonus – all of which I love.

Train has been sniffing away at all the ‘other country’ smells, and Jarod is sulking because he was expecting bike parts in the mail, but all we got were my cards.

Mackay.

9:50 am, October 28th, 2009 | No Comments »
Posted in girlthings, photography, roundups by Liz

Last weekend I flew up to Mackay – part of an early birthday present from Jarod. For those playing along at home, my birthday is the 30th of October.

Here are some photos with inadequate captions.

The Marina…

Kenny, easily the most excitable dog in the world…

And his favourite thing to do…

Followed closely by…

We went to the beach…

Kenny came too…

I found a dying crab…

And took a photo of the sunset…

On Sunday we went to Pinnacle for a Pie, and I got used to seeing acres and acres of (baby) sugar cane…

Then it was hometime, with a stopover in Brisbane…

And a cold, wet, dark welcome by Sydney…

And then I started the working week all over again.

Wrapping up the last set of Polls

11:44 am, August 3rd, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Posted in boythings, geekery, local, roundups by Jarod

Firstly, it appears that the majority of you (57%) think that Train has a better haircut than Liz and I. Kinda sad when you take into account the money spent on Liz and my hair. I mean really, all Train does is spit in her hair!

Apparently 71% of you think Train should overthrow Liz and I. And the little bugger has (as per usual) been doing her darnedest. Thanks to the 4 people that decided that we pay the rent for a reason Train’s world domination should wait a while.

Speaking of Train’s plans for world domination, we’ve undermined her by successfully converting her to a one wet food a day diet. This means she gets more super healthy non-meat based Hills Science Diet dry biccies.

It’s kind of like converting Liz and I to a half Julieface diet. Eww!

Sickness

9:31 am, June 17th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Posted in boythings, nothingness, roundups by Jarod

Yep. Still alive. Just really didn’t feel like posting in the last few weeks.
Some of it was the normal cyclical ebb and flow of blogging, but most of it was the double shot of a throat and middle ear infection. Fun stuff!!

I shall be getting back into the swing of posting now. Sorry for any inconvenience