Goomburra!

Over the Easter long weekend the Menzies clan was lucky enough to be treated to a trip to Goomburra in the Main Range National Park. If at points this post sounds like a tourism commercial it is only because the place was that good. It's a beautiful place, the company was awesome and the weather perfect.
I spent most of the week before we left getting camping gear ready and stocking up on things that had not been replaced since our last trip. I put two extra bike mounts on the car roof so that the boys could have bikes with them. It really is the only downside of the family getting into biking. Everyone wants to have a bike with them camping! I packed the car on Friday so that we could leave nice and early Saturday morning for 3 days in a little piece of heaven. The load in the car was a marvel of modern logistics but at least all my hard work paid off with just enough room to fit everything with no need for a trailer. Well almost. I left the cutlery and plates behind......

Loaded!

I mentioned the awesome company. The trip had to Goomburra had been suggested by Nick after a conversation a few weeks before. I was really keen to get out of town for a few days and do some camping on my break. Nick offered up Goomburra and that was that. The Mills family, Nick, Annick and Emily were joined by Emily's friend Misty for the weekend. They had arrived on Friday and saved a spot for us right next door. There was plenty of space though around the site. I was quite amazed that for a long weekend there were so many spots still available. On the drive in though I was concerned we would be camped on top of each other as the couple of private camping areas were packed. No need for concern.

Rohan found a comfy spot.

Saturday afternoon brought the first adventure if the trip. Alison, Jack, Nick and Annick went of for a walk on the Cascades Circuit. All up it is a 6km round trip taking in a number of little creek crossings over Dalrymple Creek and up to a waterfall. Jack set off as the trail blazer and even decided to race Nick up a couple of the hills. He also learnt a hard lesson about the Gympie Stinging Tree. There were a few tears but he bravely marched on after the shock had passed. I think the walk and the adventure overcame the pain pretty quickly and he was off again. 

Jack was rapt to find the Bearded Dragon

The intrepid adventurers

The Cascades

Alison in Dalrymple Creek.

Everyone returned from the walk a little tired but well happy with the views along the way. Annick even backed it up with a night walk with the kids later that evening. We saw a couple of frogs and even the worlds sleepiest python. It was back to the camp for a few toasted marshmallows and cups of tea. Perfect end to a day.

Sunday was the day set down for a ride. Nick and I planned to head up to the top of Mount Castle and then on to The Winder. All up the trip is only 27km but there is over 1000m of climbing in a pretty short time. In fact most of the climb is in the first 8km. The ride through the rainforest to the clearing was beautiful. The canopy came over us letting dappled light filter in. The air was cool and damp until you passed into the sunshine where the day was warming up. 

The Winder was used to raise logs up one side of the mountain and lower them over the other side to be taken to the mills for processing. Logging stopped in the area in about 1968 but the machinery remains as a reminder of how much trouble people went to in order to satisfy the relentless need for timber during the 40's and 50's.

Crank it up!

The Giant 29er is still the business.

Nick. He took it easy on me this time.

Sylvesters Lookout. A little break on the way back.

The ride out to The Winder was fun and pretty easy. Coming back seemed a whole lot harder. The grass and soft surface made the climbs just a bit more challenging. The reward was certainly in bombing down the descent back to camp though. We passed a couple of four wheel drives to very perplexed looks. 

Parting shot.

There was no rush come Monday morning to pack up. A very leisurely breakfast of bacon and eggs and coffee furnished by Nick made a great start to the day. Slowly but surely the camp came down and was packed in the truck. We were loaded and ready to go after a brilliant weekend. Gotta do that more.

Journey to "The Darkside".

Nope, not the Force and no Darth Vader is not my father. It's a review about riding the Giant TCR Advanced 0 road bike. I was fortunate enough to be handed a big cardboard box with the shiny new bike in it a little over a month ago. I was excited to be able to finally be on a Giant road bike and even more so one with the new Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset. Setting up the bike was a snap. I watched a youtube video, read through the brief instructions and had the whole thing up and going in about 40 minutes. The automatic indexing of the Di2 made the job so simple even I could do it.
Anyway, I get the thing out on the road and take it for a spin. The first thing I noticed was how well it shifts under load. My chosen loop for the day was Winn Road and it has a couple of pinchy little climbs after long descents. You hit the paddle and it just does what it's supposed to. You can be cranking it up a hill and need to drop a gear or two and away you go. Punch it, bang, there's the gear. Very snappy.
Any comment I make about geometry probably won't mean that much. I am not an experienced road racer and really only a masher at best. The bike feels very comfortable on the 70km rides I have done so far and I really like the way it climbs. The acceleration when you stomp the pedals seems good with the power core bottom bracket nice and stiff and the massive down tube allowing you to grab the bars hard and give them a good wrench for leverage.
In an interesting move Giant is using an in house wheel system and tyres. Again any comment I could make on this is probably not really all that informed except that the wheels feel stiff and responsive and the tyres roll quite nicely. My only negative comment in fact is levelled at the tyres. We have had a lot of rain here lately and they are  quite slippery with moisture on the road. The wheels are branded all over with Giant but the literature that is cable tied to the the skewers is DT Swiss. Read into that what you like.
All in all the bike is a really tidy looking unit with the internal cable routing and the reduced amount of control cables from the cockpit. The battery for the Di2 sits under the non drive side chainstay and there is even the neat "Ride Sense" unit built into the chainstay too. Ride Sense is an ANT+ sensor unit that talks to any device that is enable with the technology. In my case it is my Garmin 705 and it sends cadence and speed data to the GPS unit. Very neat.
I have to give a big shout out to Matt and Brent from Giant for hooking me up with the Advanced 0. I'm a very lucky chap. I can't say my foray into the darkside is complete because I still love my mountain bike. Riding around on the TCR Advanced 0 has certainly made the choice of what bike I will ride as a matter of choice much more difficult now though.

Insert cricket noises here.....

Yep, it's been pretty quiet around the old bloggosphere. It might lead you to think I haven't had much going on but the truth is the exact opposite.
January is a month of birthdays for our family. My son Jack turned 9 and received his first full sized 26 inch mountain bike. I think I was more excited than he was. It took nearly a fortnight for him to want to get out and ride the bike though. Finally we took off for a run along the rail trail near home. There is a walkway we normally use to get back to the bike path for the trip home but some construction work had it closed. It made this part of the journey pretty hazardous as it took us onto a busy road and Jack was less than keen. I offered the option of a bit of single track instead to get there. While Jack was a bit sceptical about the single track he was really not keen on the road. We did it. Before I knew it he was flying along down the trail and climbing like a champ! I reckon he needs a little more practice with the shifters and he will have it nailed.

A couple of red frogs later, away we went.

For the last couple of years January has also been crazy busy with work. We delivered a news set for a local TV bulletin in the last week of the month. It looked pretty cool and all went really smoothly. I know it isn't about bikes or family but it did keep me away from both. The video is a time lapse of the removal of the old set and install of the new one.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/local/qld/#fop

I got an early birthday present too. Matt and Brent from Giant handed me a spanking new TCR Advanced 0 road bike. Yep, a road bike. There will be a detailed review soon but suffice to say it is great to ride. It has the new Shimano Di2 electronic groupset and boy does it make changing gears easy. The weather here has been pretty wet and so I haven't put any really serious miles in on it yet but it's great to have a bike that fits with nice kit hanging from it. I look totally pro in the new Ronde kit too. Here's the goods....

http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-au/bikes/model/tcr.advanced/9671/50835/
And right now. Well I made a promise to myself that every day this month I would ride. So far so good. I also have stopped drinking alcohol completely for an extended period. Feels pretty darn good so far. I am really looking forward to the end of the month to plug all the numbers in to the Garmin Connect and see how my totals come up. I know it won't be huge but after the amount of time I have spent doing everything but ride it should still bring a smile.
Anyway, stay tuned for the review on the roadie and as the race season heats up for more of my ramblings about riding bikes. I reckon this year will have a bunch more stories about riding with the kids given the look on Jacks face after the his first ride on the big bike. 

There are probably a lot of words I could say to sum up 2011. In the end if you watch the images, you'll get the point. We made it, we survived and hopefully in 2012 we will thrive.

Enjoy.

2011 is gone..... from Graham Menzies on Vimeo.

Updates on the new bike.

I've now got a couple of races and some reasonably long rides in on the XTC 29er 0. Overall it is a solid and well behaved platform that can really haul arse. The feeling of sitting "in" the bike rather than "on" the bike adds a level of stability when descending fast fire roads and comfort during long, sustained climbing. Both of these traits are valuable in quite a lot of the riding I enjoy. The frame is stiff and responsive so there is no perceptible loss of power when you stand up and put the power down. The front tracks true with the Overdrive 2 head tube junction and the Fox forks teaming up to keep you pointed where you aim. I am a big fan of the Fox forks and after messing around with pressures a bit I have it right where I want it. I use the lockout a bit but generally I don't feel the need. I love riding this bike.

It's not all roses though. I am really not a big fan of the Schwalbe Racing Ralph tyres. I know a lot of riders love them, I'm not one of them. They are OK but I think the side walls are too soft and that means I feel I need to run more pressure to compensate for the squirmy feel. Once that happens you lose some of the bump absorption and traction in loose surfaces. A tubeless kit may fix it but as yet I haven't put one in. Not a big fix but worth mentioning. The Avid brakes. Man those things squeal. The performance is fine, the set up is fine and I quite like the lever reach adjustment but the noise is just hard to ignore. There is also a 205mm rotor specced on the bike for this year and for me it is too much brake. I can see that for a bigger human there would be value in it as the increased stopping power would come into it's own. For my 70kg frame I really don't need it though. When I grab a handful of lever I often need to check that my fillings have stayed put after I have nose wheelied down the trail. I'm picky. Too much brake, sheesh.
The highlight for me is still the Shimano XT drive train. This stuff works. I love that even after 4 hours of slop and crap it keeps shifting with confidence. I am not known for my light shifting technique (read masher) and sometimes when I get tired (read after lap one usually) my gear choices are made rather late forcing a big jump in ratios and that disturbing crunching sound to emanate from the drive train. Even with that obvious disadvantage the XT doesn't complain and hits the gear allowing me to look like I might actually know how to ride a mountain bike. Love it.
So if wishes were fishes what would I do? First up Shimano XT Icetech brakes. No question there. Next would be some tyres and that would probably be Maxxis Ikons. I have one to try here right now but as yet it hasn't made it onto a bike. At 2.2 inch it would hopefully give a bit more volume and suppleness to the ride without saggy sidewalls. I have had great success with Maxxis as a brand but again this is a personal thing. After that it's a hard decision. While there is a case for lighter wheels it is a big expense when the stock wheels are solid with hubs that roll well and are easy to service. Get the wheels checked after a few rides and keep the tension right and they aren't too bad. If however Shimano ever gets it together and makes the XT wheelset with a 15mm hub I'll be all over them like white on rice.
As always, these thoughts are based on my personal preference and keeping in mind that I have 2 small children, a wife and a mortgage. I search out performance balanced with value and the XTC delivers both of these in spades.