Bezerk Cycles BLOG August 08

31st Aug...The last day of winter, or is it...had a good 4hrs in the Dandenongs on the roadie last Sunday (need to add some pics of the beast...) and was happily testing a pair of 38mm Bouwmeester wheels which look sh1t hot mounted in the bike. Not sure of a total for the day as I forgot to charge the Garmin....DOH! Chris, Chuan and Steve started out the day with me for a climb fest.

Tuesday was a mag trainer session out in the garage in some crazy cold conditions, was funny seeing the steam coming off as you were working hard.

Wednesday was a hitout with Sam in the Nong's again with a ball breaker up Mast Gully rd, if you don't know it, think 20+ percent of up, not long but oh so steep. Another way to put it, when in the 34/25 when seated, you have to lean over the bars to keep the front wheel on the ground! We followed this up with the "Wall" and a few other climbs, was a sweet night of hills.

Thursday was a day off from GS work so I took the opportunity to ride out and see Pete at Cycle Science in Mitcham. Was great to see the wide variety of bikes in store and the diverse range of machines. I was in desperate need of some new bib-knicks (yes, the others are getting rather "revealing!") some new gloves and an interesting Bontrager saddle to try out.

So, todays ride...scheduled was 10hrs of the flat stuff, Chris volunteered to accompany me for the first 5 - 6 hrs even though we had a rather early start time...we saw some interesting sights, one car running into a sign, plenty of p1ssheads at StKilda, Chris scored a possum with his rear wheel, we stopped for the "damsel in distress" who had come home from clubbing with no keys or phone and we made a hasty u-turn in Frankston to avoid any other "incidents". We came back from where we came from and I parted company with Chris at Welli and Springie rd. Thanks again Chris!

From here it was down Springie to Beach rd and I ended up riding down to Mt Martha (is that down or up!) and backtracking and back home by 12.

New PB distance of 251km
1,300m of up
A nice cruisy 130 HR average
27.2km/h average speed

I hit the proverbial wall with about 10km to go, so a Coke and Picnic was the order of the day to recharge and finish the sucker off. Oh, and seat was great, very flat from nose to tail so you can move around easy on it, the foam just the right density and the measured width appeared to work well.

20th Aug...Want to lose weight? Well how about 4kg in 3 days? The new patent pending Bezerk weightloss program consists of going to crazy packed childrens party on a Saturday night, go and race an 8hr on Sunday and feel like crapola all of Monday. There you go, job done...no wonder I was cramping half way through the race and then on for the next four hours!...viruses will do that to ya!

19th Aug...Another Anaconda Enduro Series finished off, and what a finish it was! I had the new Bezerk frame built up and ready to race during the week before...OK, it was actually Saturday when it was ready to race, but who's counting...

Above shows the beast after the race, a nice coat of the brown stuff showing the track was in pretty good condition considering the amount of rain we have had and the FGP choice of the actual course. The course was nice and tacky after two laps with only one real section of deepening mud, the rest was on the Commonwealth Games circuit, so just gravel and the occasional running water was the terrain of the day.

So how'd it go? 127km, 3,080m of climbing, average heartrate of 165bpm, 5th place! As I came into transition, with 10mins to go, Tim Calkins (eventual series winner) asked if I was going out for another lap..."I'll give you a hug if you don't go out again" (or something similar to that), so I obliged and congratulated him on his series win.

Great to see Damian Richmond kickin my butt again, his first race of the year I think, and a strong 3rd place for the day. Steve and Chris PB'd with a 14th place in "Just good friends" division, nice work!

A thanks goes out to Baz for lending me a spare front wheel in case things got grim weather wise.

Below some great pics by Stephen Rowe.

Chris

Damo

Steve

ME!

6th Aug...OK, OK, OK, so I haven't been typng much lately, I have little to excuse myself...well I can say that we now have frames in stock!!! Yes, you're reading correctly, now in stock small, medium and large alloy/carbon Bezerk frames.

Below is Baz's new steed in the Bezerk "Team" colors. I might add a second white band around the seat-tube on the next paint job though...all pics are clickable for larger image.

One of those colors that's hard to convey on a screen, known as Electric Orange, it really looks great in the sun...now I just have to paint Sam's frame and mine for the final round of the Anaconda Enduro Series. Apparently I'm in 6th place overall....might have to pull the finger out for the last race!

Coach Plumb assessed my progress tonight and is now formulating my training for the Kona 24hr, sounds like plenty of mag-trainer sessions and some long days in the saddle...

Plenty of riding coming up, off to Modella with Mello on Saturday, so that should be some climbing madness. Speaking of climbing madness, I ended up with around 135km and 3,000m of climbing on Sat/Sunday combined, nice!!!

Looking at going back to drops for a roadie, so I went to see William at Beach Rd Cycles and ended up walking out with a pair of Ritchey bars and matching stem. Bolted them up on Friday nite for the Saturday ride and quickly converted it back for Baz to show a potential buyer for my bike, fingers crossed... After riding Baz's Giant that has a top-tube length more suited to my height, I have concluded that if the bike sells I will be looking for a larger frame.