Glenrock_with_Noor_2010-03-25_18_06_24_

GPX Report (PDF)

Date of track: 25.3.2010
Start time: 18:07:32
End time: 19:20:43
Total track time: 1hr 13m 11s
Total flat distance: 9.5 km
Average speed: 9.8 km/h

Noor called in on his way back from Smiths Lake and we went for a ride out at Glenrock National Park on the coast near Newcastle.

Download the video – 28mb

David and I went down the coast for the weekend. I wanted to test out my camera in the surf, it’s a bit shaky but after reviewing this initial footage I’m sure I can improve on this. It has been ages since I’ve been in the surf and we had a great day for it. The water was still cold, hence why we’re wearing wetsuits but it was a lot of fun.

Download this video – 19mb

This video shows the ATC2K mounted in different locations on my bike riding The Oaks firetrail from Woodford to Glenbrook.

Download the Video – 11MB

This was filmed a few years ago.

Glenrock-2009-10-18

Another ride out at Glenrock, I met up with two other guys on the trail and they showed me some new tracks.

Glenrock-2009-10-18.pdf

Stats are from http://utrack.crempa.net/

I knew about Glenrock from Trailflix and since I’ve been doing uni in Newcastle for over 12 months it was about time to check it out. I started at Gun Club Rd and followed the track all the way to the end which is where the above series of photos are taken from. I headed down and to the left where I came to a sewage treatment plant, not quite picturesque so I turned around and went to the left. This took me to a viewing platform of Glenrock Lagoon (I think) I didn’t bother reading the info panels. There were some walkers gathered there and some douchebag and his girlfriend taking myspace/facebook profile photos. I got sick of their giggling so jumped back on my bike and headed a little further down the track and came across this nice water crossing.

I should have looked at the maps a bit more before I went as I just kept following the tracks, but that’s half the fun of adventure! So I pushed on through the creek being careful not to slip over and gave the wheels a good wash. I bit further on and I ended up at a powerline junction between two valleys. I looked at the hills for those tracks and didn’t feel like that sort of punishment so I followed this track that was on the ridgetop and I came across a newly built bridge. Turned out it was a fully developed bikepath called the Fernleigh Track. I had a choice of slightly uphill or downhill so my instincts told me downhill. As it was newly built the surface was brilliant so it wasn’t long till I was in top gear flying downhill dodging mums & prams and scaring little kids as I whizzed passed. All of a sudden I came across this awesome tunnel!

Turns out that the Fernleigh Track follows an old railway line. Trains used to pass through this tunnel. It goes underneath the Pacific Highway, I didn’t know this at the time and kept riding downhill till the bikepath ended… I was hoping it’d be a loop. So I’ve no idea where I am and ask the closest person who happens to be putting on a business shirt in the street from his car… He tells me that I’d ridden underneath the Pacific Highway and I’d have to ride back up hill. DAMMIT! I spotted the communications towers at the top of the hill on Gun Club Rd and I was a good 30mins ride away. Anyway I made it back alright and as I was packing up the bike I got talking to a dude who popped his tyre. He said to give him a call to team up and do some riding, so hopefully my next adventure into Glenrock will be just as fun.

Sunday: Go Karts
I owed Brendan for his birthday back in January and we decided we’d try out Fastlane Karting after seeing the signs when we were last heading to Oran Park for the V8′s. It was a bit of a drive out there, never been to Minto or anywhere near it before. We’d previously been on the Eastern Creek Karts and The Butterfly Farm Karts so we had some experience. The main attraction to Fastlane was the price, almost half the cost of Eastern Creek.

We kitted up with hairnets and helmets and hit the track. It didn’t take long to realise how rough the track was. I’m certain that we had wheels off the ground as we hit some of the bumps. Brendan flogged me in the first session, managed 38 second laps while I was around the 40 mark. Apparently the staff lap times are around 37 with the record being a 35.9 so we were pushing pretty hard. It was possible to get the karts sliding going too fast into the corners but it wasn’t the fastest technique for racing. We had a break between sessions to realise how tense we were. Hanging on to the wheel as the kart is bouncing around really takes it out of your arms. The second session was a bit different as Brendan had a slower kart. To make things interesting I kept slowing down so we could go two karts wide around some of the corners. This led us coming real close to hitting the tyre barriers and we nudged each other a few times.

Fastlane Karting was pretty cool, heaps more relaxed than Eastern Creek and much cheaper. The track really makes you work hard and we could barely walk afterwards. I ended up bruising my hip and back whilst Brendan bruised up his elbow against the seat.

Monday: Lazy Day
I had planned to do the Woodford to Glenbrook ride but after the battering from Go Karts I decided it was best to rest and catch up on shows. My awesome shows include…

… as well as Nitro Circus but I couldn’t find a fancy icon on mediaicons.org to match.

Tuesday: Night Photography
I spent an hour or so flicking through photos on deviantart and got some inspiration to try some night photography with the focus on light trails. I went to Penrith thinking that there would be plenty of traffic but it turned out to be a quiet night apart from the bums getting free coffee.

On the way home I stopped at the bridge that crosses the highway at Glenbrook then again at Blaxland and got some more impressive results.

Wednesday: Bike Ride
Since Noor and I got our bikes back in September we have always talked about riding The Oaks firetrail (30km) which runs from Woodford to Glenbrook. A few years ago Brendan and I walked it which took like 8 hours to gauge our fitness if we ever attempted the 6 foot track. We caught the train up and found another 8 or so keen bikers getting off at Woodford. I think it’s about the only thing that puts Woodford on the map. The track is well documented on Trailflix so I won’t go into the detail.

We basically just started riding, came across a few hills which slowed us down and ended up walking a few. The trail was easy to ride on, rather smooth so it was easy to get some speed. We reached the peak known as the helipad and stopped for a break. The next 10km or so is downhill to Glenbrook. This is where the fun begins and you don’t have to pedal much for quite a while. Once we hit the gate there’s a single track off to the left which was where the real fun started. Everything seems faster when all the trees and leaves are whizzing passed and branches scratching your arms. I was having a great time and pusing myself to try and go faster, this didn’t work too well as it wasn’t long till I misjudged a turn and headed straight into a shrub. Luckily I managed to ride over the top of them and keep going.

A bit further down and I heard the dreaded psssssssshh. No it wasn’t a snake caught in my spokes, I had popped my back tyre. Bugger. I had a spare tube and it didn’t take long to swap it, however my pump sucks and I spent more time pumping than swapping the tube. Not long after fixing my tyre we came across another guy with a popped tyre and helped him out with some patches. On our way once again dodging trees the track got a little rougher as we went round a corner there were some fallen trees and the dirst created a bit of a jump. Noor landed a bit rough and got shin bashed pretty bad. He made a Bear Grylls style pressure bandage out of some danger tape to hold his leg together and we trekked on. Back on the ashphalt it was a rocket ride down to the causeway, the fastest I’ve been on my bike and I’m grateful to have disc brakes. The causeway is pretty much the end of the ride, the hill back out of the Glenbrook National Park is a bastard and not worth remembering

Thursday: Movie Premiere
After riding The Oaks track and popping my tyre once again I figured I’d try some new tread.

I picked up a Maxxis Larsen TT after browsing the farken forums to find this tyre is quite popular amongst other bikers. The guy at Anaconda told me about these thorn resistant tubes, they heaps thicker than standard tubes so they add a bit of weight but hopefully they’re more durable. I’m going to run 50 psi and see how that goes.

Today was the release of the new Fast & Furious movie. I couldn’t think of anything  better than seeing this on a Thursday night in Penrith with all the other doofers. We got there about an hour before it started and lined up. It wasn’t the first time we’d waited for a movie (Die Hard 4 & Transformers) but we managed to get some pretty good seats and I thought it was worth seeing.

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

Friday: Bushwalk

In 1884 a New South Wales government party marked out a new horse track from Katoomba across the Cox’s River to shorten the journey. The track was constructed to be six feet wide (in order that two loaded drays could pass each other at any point), and was completed at a cost of 2500 pounds, although it was not until 1937 that the track became known as the Six Foot Track, by which time it was already close to impassable.

I heard about this suspension bridge (Bowtells Bridge – built by the army in 1992) which is part of the 6 foot track. Brendan has been there before doing some suveying. As it was my last free day I was keen to go check it out. Without any real preparation other than a few sangas and our camelpacks we drove into the Megalong Valley which is an epic road with amazing scenery. We followed the road as far as we could going through a few property gates and came across a nice camping ground at the top of a ridge. Once we couldn’t go any further we went back to where the 6 foot track crosses the Megalong Valley road and continues to Katoomba. We headed in the other direction towards Jenolan Caves.

Once we got passed the farms the track narrowed to a goats track. It took us around 1.5 hours to get to the bridge. A quick look on the maps and I think the distance was around the 7km mark.

We came across some people doing the full 6 foot track having a rest at the bridge. After watching them cautiously cross the bridge we had to get some photos on it before we ran out of sunlight. It wasn’t till I was about 1/3 the way across that it started bouncing around which was  a bit freaky. I turned around to see Brendan jumping up and down making it rock all over the place whilst I’m trying to get some photos, haha.

For the first ride of ’09 we decided to head into Glenbrook National Park in search of a lookout. Pete found Mount Portal lookout overlooking the Nepean River on Google Maps and we decided to give it a crack. We rode from Pete’s place at Mount Riverview down to Glenbrook National Park. The ride down into the causeway is bloody steep and bloody fast…

A great opportunity for a bit of a rest and some photos at the causeway.

After walking up the bigarse hill on the other side we came to a junction in the road and headed towards Euroka Clearing.

Another junction in the road. Right was the road to Euroka and Left was the road we took. This lead us to Tunnel View Lookout and Mount Portal Lookout. We had to walk the bikes up another massive hill to get to the lookout. We were actually looking down onto Glenbrook and the train line. The vew was quite amazing at Tunnel View, Glenbrook creek was below us.

A quick ride down the track took us to the Mount Portal Lookout which overlooks the Nepean River and looking east over Penrith. The city skyline was visible on the horizon. There was a gate and sign for abseilers access to the cliff face. A good rest helped by some snakes gave us a little boost to start the trek back home.

Instead of taking the road back to the causeway, Pete spotted a single track which looked like it was heading in the same direction. We chanced it and decided to ride it. The track turned out to have a heap of steps which made it very interesting going down.

The road back up to the gates of the park sucked so we ended up walking that. By time we made the gates the sun was beginning to set.

Monday:

I had the bikes packed in the boat on Sunday night so we were ready to go Monday morning. Noor got a lift to my place then we went and picked up Brendan. Ross bailed. With all our gear filling the VT and a new batch of songs on the ipod, it was time to get this trip on the road. Nothing exciting happened until we hit the Kangaroo Valley Bakehouse. Chunky steak pies all round. Noor and I had to sample a fresh batch of caramel slice however it was toxic sugar as it was still setting. The pies were awesome! We ate whilst watching a painter on the otherside of the window.

As I was using the spare wheel on the boat trailer I stopped at Ulladulla to get some fresh bearings to cover and future problems. This turned into an epic failure. It went something like this…

1. We bought Holden bearings. They didn’t fit.
2. We brought the wheel into the shop.
3. Their mechanics removed the bearings casings.
4. We exchanged for Ford bearings. They didn’t fit.
5. We went back in for further discussion…
6. Bald man got the shits and told us to bring the boat around the back.
7. Bald man bitched about us to the mechanics.
8. Mechanic stalls us for a bit.
9. Other mechanic comes and has a look at the problem. He was cool, figured out that my hubs were weird and required Holden > Ford > Holden combination.
10. Bald man has a bit of a spaz. I work my customer relation skills to change his mood.
11. We ended up getting a $30 refund once all the comotion was over.

What should’ve been a 5-10 minute stop ended up taking around 45mins. We did score a free rag from an old hag though.

We arrived at the caravan around 4:00pm. There was an unkown bike that had been locked to our annex which sparked fantasies of some hot female who would appear later that evening… that never happened. The wildlife appeared though, a group of ducks and a few birds were interested in us. We unpacked all our gear and went for a pedal to show Noor the sites of Durras.

After our ride we went into Batemans Bay to do some shopping, we were anxious for food and with no effort we stumbled across a fish & chip shop. It was something like $30 for a heap of fish, calamari, prawns and chips. Attempting to eat chips in any coastal town brings the seagulls. This is when we met the unheard of, a seagull with no feet. We named him Stumpy. He had a classy technique of hovering half a metre from your face for food.

We watched an episode of Top Gear then I chucked Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place on. I wasn’t sure whether Noor would like this odd style of 80′s humour but it soon became apparent that he thought it was hilarious. If you’ve never experienced the wrath of Dark Place then it is essential you watch this video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93FT-STxDGM

Tuesday:

As the sun was up it was time to hit the beach. Surprisingly the beach was quite flat but the water was so clear. A little cold but bearable. After we had enough of splashing about it was time for lunch. We made nachos. They were brilliant.

After lunch we gathered a few rods and some squid to attempt some fishing in the boat on Durras Lake. As it had been close to 12 months since our boat has been near the water I was a little rusty with the process and forgot to put the bung in! Luckily I noticed this as soon as we put the boat in the water so it was not too difficult to hoist it back on the trailer and let it drain out. After the 2nd attempt at launching the boat we were successful in floating on the water. We didn’t go far from the boat ramp before we threw the lines in. Noor was the first to catch a ridiculously huge bream as seen here.

About 5 minutes after releasing Noors fish I reeled in another little bream. Not quite dinner so we relied on Toobs to keep our hopes up.

As the light was fading and with no fish for dinner we had to rely on a BBQ for dinner. This consisted of East Blaxland snags (only the greatest sausages you can buy), steak, sliced spuds and a salad. I attached myself to the long handle tongs and began to work the magic of the firebecue.

It wasn’t long till the possums turned up to clean up our mess. We threw some tomato at them and found out that they’re quite blind in finding food. As all the wildlife is so tame at Durras it was possible to get this close up photo of the possum munching on some tomato. The flash probably blinded him but it’s not a bad photo from the Canon Ixus 50.

We finished the night with Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

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

Wednesday:

Unfortunately the weather was slightly miserable but it wasn’t all bad just overcast. Not the best for swimming but perfect for a bike ride. We headed off to the Big Tree. Noor had his GT, I had my Giant and Brendan was stuck with the Malvern Star (I did attempt to get the gears working but it still sucks to ride). Once we hit the dirt it was mainly an uphill battle. We got to the top of one hill and stopped for a breather. I looked to the left and saw what looked to be a curled up inner tube only to realise it was a Red Bellied Black Snake.

Once we’d made it to the top of the hill there was a short fast downhill track that used to be accessible by 4wd however they’ve blocked it off with fallen trees. Around a few corners and we were at The Big Tree.

Trees like “the big tree” in Benandarah State Forest were spared the axe during the era of selective logging. With a girth of 8.4 metres and diameter of 260 cms it far exceeded the sawmiller specified 1.8 metre girth, 59 cm diameter. But it was hollow, unsound and therefore unsuitable as a sawlog. The massive, Spotted Gum well over two hundred years old is now a local tourist icon and a magnificent habitat tree for hollow dependant birds and arboreal marsupials.

State Forests’ 1996 Benandarah 133 Harvesting Plan seals the fate of “the big tree” and many other “mature and overmature trees scattered at various densities throughout the regrowth” of the whole of the “Greater” Murramarang National Park. These magnificent old-growth specimens, “the large unmerchantable trees, are culled to encourage regeneration and the release of young healthy trees.”

Source: http://www.morning.com.au/fod/part2.htm

There’s a good chance we ate something unhealthy for lunch. I was pumped to explore this cave that David and I found last time we were down here. We had one little LED torch. It started off with about a 10m army crawl then the cave opened up to quite a large chamber. I was able to stand up meaning that it was over 2m in height. It was pitch black, the photos don’t emphasise this as we had to use the flash. The really cool part was when we noticed daylight shining through another tunnel, we had to investigate. Looking at how the fallen rocks were held in place I was a little hesitant but Brendan managed to squeeze his way out and give us the all clear. Once we were out of the cave there was a ledge alongside the cliff. We followed this for a while thinking it was a track that would eventually lead somewhere. It didn’t. I used my Bear Grylls extreme climbing skills to get a birds eye view up a tree but that didn’t achieve anything. We used vines to climb back down to the beach, I ended up with a leech on my foot so after the suggestion of salt water I did the bolt to the beach.

The frypan whipped up an awesome stir fry. It’s hard to fail when cooking a stir fry. This was followed by super desserts. Super desserts started on our trip to Smiths Lake. The challenge is to pile as much sugary goodness into a bowl whilst still being edible. This time it consisted of:

• Caramel Mud Cake
• Vanilla Mud Cake
• Kit Kat Chocolate
• Whittakers White Chocolate
• Nuts About Chocolate Ice Cream

After our super desserts we couldn’t move so it was movie time. We watched Death Race.

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

Thursday:

Another drizzly day but we were determined to do some fishing. We drove out to the beaches via a dirt road. Had a bit of fun in the wet. Had a lot of trouble getting back up a slippery hill then settled on a beach with no sand and sharp rocks. Whilst we attempted to fish off the rocks breaking lines and catching weed.  Brendan got hooked on an eel. It didn’t seem like it was actually going for the bait, just caught up in the line. He managed to shake him off without having to whip out the tools.

As we still had a few bits of squid we tried our luck at beach fishing. There was a strong rip that pulled our lines down the beach and onto the sand so it wasn’t the best conditions. We had a go at fishing at the boat ramp, I still had the beach rod meaning I had huge casting power but the weight of the sinker would scare anything that may be nearby. Mullet were jumping.

We watched a heap of How I Met Your Mother season 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y2pB7tUjN8

Friday:

As it was a bloody hot day we left this till late afternoon. We headed off around 6:00pm. This is the 2nd time I’ve been on this track with Noor. We didnt quite make it all the way to the end previously. Karl came along which brought our n00b bikie gang to 3, loaded with 2L water in our camelpacks we go moving. About 2/3 of the way there was a decent downhill section, as I was flying down it wasn’t until the flat that I realised that I had a puncture. Luckily I was prepared with a puncture kit and pump. A bit of stuffing around fixing that. I’ve now found out that is was a pinch flat (two holes, like a snakebite caused by the tyre pinching the tube against the rim) which is commonly caused by having underinflated tyres.

We got to the end and witnessed the typical Blue Mountains picturesque view from the top of a cliff. Surprisingly there were no smashed cars that had gone over the ledge. The sun was going down so we started to head back. About 15minutes into the ride back home I got another puncture. Damnit! It was another pinch flat. After fixing the 2nd puncture by the time we got going again we were really running out of daylight. This made the last half of the track quite interesting without lights. It was a case of hold on and hope for the best.

Everyone was knackered by the time we got back to Noors, I didn’t get home till 9:00pm! I’ll have to remember to pack some food for these epic bike adventures. I totally dried out the 2L of water I had in my camel pack.

After doing some more research it seems that I need to put more pressure in my tyres. Rather than inflating to 30psi I’m going to try upwards of 40psi and see how that goes. I used up all my puncture patches so I’ll get another kit and a few spare tubes to carry around.

After a few kilometres of some pretty easy riding we had some huge hills to climb. There was a bit of walking involved here because it was a bit too steep. We followed a hunch and took a detour down a small side track which it turned out ended in a pretty cool lookout with a view of Yellow Rock in the distance.

Back on the main track there were some small hills and a few jumps, before we made the climb back up to Mt Riverview. We thought we were pretty cool after our little lookout detour so we took another side path instead of taking the beaten track. Unfortunately the gamble didn’t pay off and we had to carry our bikes up the cliff at the back of Western Avenue in Mt Riv. Believe me, riding a bike up a large hill sure beats carrying a bike up a large hill. Anyway, lesson learned.

We had a blast as usual and got a few good shots, which you’ll find in the gallery.

More PHOTOS in the GALLERY –>

This is a follow up from my creaking cranks post. I picked up the required tools to pull the bottom bracket apart. A crank puller and the crankset spline tool. Cost me about $50 all up but it’s worth it because I’m sure I’ll use it again and I got to see the problem rather than paying the bike shop to fix it.

Step 1:

Using an 8mm allen key, remove the bolt holding the crank in place.

Step 2:

Using the crank removal tool. Thread it into the crank then using a shifter or a 16mm spanner, rotating clockwise will push against the crankset to remove the crank. I had to use a rubber mallet on one side to help shift it. Perhaps this unequal amount of tightness relates to the creaking noises. Do the same for the other side.

Step 3:

Using the crankset spline tool and a large shifter, remove the nut holding the crankset into the bottom bracket. Start with opposite side from the chain. The drive side of the bike is a reverse thread. Remove the crankset.

Step 4:

Inspect inside the bottom bracket and clean. In my case there is a substantial amount of aluminum flakes which are surely not supposed to be there. I think this is the cause of my noises.

Checkout all the metal flakes in there!

Cleaned the crankset and bottom bracket with a rag to remove debris, sand and grease.

Step 5:

To make things quieter and easier to remove next time it’s important to grease the bottom bracket threads, crankset threads, crank spindles and crank bolts. I didn’t have any of the swanky bike grease but I had some stuff left over from an engine build. I used this to grease (white) the threads and used a thicker bearing grease (blue) on the spindle. After greasing everything fits back together in the reverse sequence.

Step 6:

Happy days! Take it for a spin and re tighten anything if necessary.

Here’s a quick little video that might help explain the annoying noise.

Creaky Cranks [MP4 512x288 4MB]

Noor and I went for a pedal down Grose Road to Faulconbridge Point (Lookout). We managed to fit both bikes into the 4WD. It was a good track, not too many hills, considering we’d both worked all day. The new pedals worked really well, especially in the wet. It  wasn’t full on raining but there was a light sprinkle. The view at the end was pretty amazing. Looking down at the Grose River, you could hear it rushing. My gloves were drenched by the time we got back to the FJ40.

More PHOTOS in the GALLERY –>

Since I got my bike I was never happy with how my feet (size 15) sat on the pedals. I did find that my hiking shoes sat alright, but they’re quite chunky shoes for riding in. I called in at the local bike shop to see what he had. Turns out he didn’t have much at all, but for $20 I got these. They’re a fair bit wider than the standard pedals, a quick ride around the yard and they feel more comfortable. They’ve got better grip. Have to test them on a proper ride before I’m 100% satisfied with them, definitely an improvement though.

I don’t know what this is called but I was inspired by some of the trials riding videos I came across.

[2mb h.264 MP4 Quicktime]