Category Archives: Whatever

Isn’t this fudge great?

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So you remember those good old fashioned Easter weekends where you and your family went away with another coupla families, and you were at the beach and the sun was shining and the kids were all let’s go to the beach let’s go to the pool beach pool beach pool and the dads were all let’s go for a walk/ride/think I need a lie-down and the mums were all where’s your sunscreen and your hat and how’s Janene, haven’t seen her lately but her cousin’s daughter’s mother-in-law just had another baby, at her age, really and isn’t this fudge great did you make this and who wants some eggs for breakfast not chocolate eggs you goose I really don’t believe you just did that and has anyone seen my keys my phone my wallet who cares …

Yeah. Had me one of those.

Amongst it all, a couple of nice outings on the mtb. Riding along the beach at Noosa North Shore, round the trails of Tewantin State Forest, and a lap of Cooloolabin Dam. Pretty sweet.

Of course I watched Tommeke ride away from all those nobodies. And Anna Meares, I love you forever. (Maybe not as much as Les does). And I found some time to read snippets of The New Timer which was by far the best coverage of the worlds. And I don’t even like tattoos.

 

So this is going well

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And by this, I mean the outcomes of this.

As regular readers have no doubt noticed, we’re all multi-media here at Briztreadley these days.

And although this is mostly a site about cycling, its also my personal platform, and I will talk about whatever takes my fancy. Nobody’s holding a gun to your head, you know. Leave whenever you get bored.

And I’m just a teeny-tiny bit buzzed about the fact that the editor of the website that I write football articles for agreed to my idea for a podcast. And we’ve now recorded two episodes of the pod.

And it’s NOW AVAILABLE ON FREAKING ITUNES. Theoretically on the same footing as Football Weekly (from The Guardian), or This American Life, etc etc.

That is as cool as the other side of the pillow. I don’t care what you think, my podcast is on iTunes. (I do care what you think, go listen and let me know).

Running on empty

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This week’s Sunday Spin is available.

I can’t link to it on Soundcloud because I need to buy some more space for my Soundcloud account because of all the podcasting and interview-recording I’m doing. So I’m going to have to either cough up 29 Euros (I don’t know how much that really is!), or delete some of the golden moments that currently exist there.

The file is also on my Skydrive to download (because I know you want to collect the whole set for yourself, some of my readers are kinda OCD, but still very nice people, not at all loopy that would be a totally unkind thing to even IMPLY), see the Sunday Spin archive page for details.

So I’ll see if you can play it from a WordPress audio widget here.

It seems you can.

All of this being a multi-media internet cycling superstar* costs me a fortune!

(*as well as being a substantial self-delusion)

(But please listen to the Sunday Spin, this week including my very favourite bike shop owner JP)

A heroic tale from cycling’s sordid past

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Well I sometimes hear that competitive cycling has a sordid present as well as a sordid past.

But then you can always find sordid wherever you go. It’s in all of us, what matters is how we deal with that, and how much we let out. And when.

Marshall ‘Major’ Taylor was a leader and a pioneer. The first African-American man to be a world champion at any sport. He made the big bucks, and was arguably the biggest sporting star IN THE WORLD at the turn of the century (19th to 20th). But when he came to Australia, it was both triumph and tragedy.

Jim Fitzpatrick wrote a book called ‘Major Taylor in Australia’, and as part of Bike Week this year, he gave a talk last Thursday evening at Rabbit Hole Cafe, West End, about Major Taylor, a mostly forgotten story from our nation’s mostly forgotten cycling history.

The interview linked above was conducted just before Jim’s talk.

For me, this was the most enjoyable evening of a very enjoyable Bike Week. A chance to enjoy the company of lively friends and hear some empassioned story-telling.

Other Bike Week things that were fun …

  • MTB Film night  at the Villager Hotel in George St. Astounding riding, amazing scenery, convivial atmosphere, and a gentle pedal back to BQ afterwards.
  • Film night, at the Schonell at UQ. Pizza and documentaries. Everybody should try to see ‘Where Are You Go?‘ … ask me directly for BQ’s copy when you see me next. (Don’t ask me for the mtb films, because I promised to loan them to someone already but I have to prise them out of BQ Emma’s grasp first).

This week not starring me

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The Sunday Spin is up nice & early this week. What a good example it sets.

I couldn’t make it to the recording sesh this week … Bike Week got in the way.

But the guest in the studio this week is the delightfully English and charming Rachel Smith. Who is a bubbling fountain of cool fresh ideas about how to make cycling a more ‘normal’ thing to do. You know, by normal people.

Get the MP3 from the official ABC site, as linked above. Or listen right here. Right now.

Or, of course you could listen to it when the rest of Australia does, at 1.30pm on Sunday (2.30pm in AEDT states).

Here’s how:

  • Tune your digital radio to 612 ABC Brisbane
  • Go to ABC Brisbane and follow the ‘Listen Live’ link for 612 ABC Brisbane
  • Get an app like Tunein Radio for your preferred mobile device and look for 612 ABC Brisbane

The perfect contestants

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Emma and David (above) won the CityCycle Amazing Race, with, like, a million points. Great work. Good planning. Just outsmarted everyone else, I think. And they must have good eyesight, cos on the map I gave out to participants, the CityCycle station numbers were in very small print.

But the numbers were vital information, cos it was pointless to just rock up to any old station … only those which were multiples of three scored points.

And a quick audio interview, cos that’s what we do here on Briztreadley these days.

And here’s Lauren and I, working hard.

 

Spin me round, right round like a record

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Last week’s Sunday Spin is now in the archives. This one felt a bit rushed to me, but once again it might have been my fault … we tried to jam too much into 30 minutes.

There was Jason Markland and the Blue Bike, the Balmoral track kiddies, Dessie the track superstar, a tiny bit of Sally Collings, and quite plenty of Pip Carroll from Melbourne Bike Fest.

As the two Ronnies used to say: “And in a packed program tonight …”

Listen out for a calmer, less hyper Sunday Spin this week. On the ABC Digital airwaves, 1.30pm in Queensland. An actor, an author (Sally! getting the airtime her story deserves), and some National Ride To School day. That’s on the schedule at the moment.

Update: And here it is.

Being the change

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Circumstances not entirely beyond my control led to me driving to work this morning, via Mt Gravatt. At peak hour.

It looked like this.

just_shoot_me_now

That’s Juliette St east-bound, just before Thompson Estate Reserve. Which has a bike path running through it.

I saw a couple of cyclists go past under me as I sat there. And sat there. Burning fuel, burning time, burning a hole in my brain.

rider_envy

Yes, its hard to pick out, but there is a rider there.

And Foster The People sang about change. (As always thanks to Adrian & Amy for telling me about the bands I would like).

And of course I hated sitting in the traffic. And I wanted to get out of the car and go over to some other cars and talk to people in a non-confrontational and supportive way and ask them why they were doing this to themselves. Is there really no better way to get where you’re going than this?

But all of us had made decisions which put us in into our own cars and thus into this situation. Me included.

It’s sometimes good to be reminded of how good I have it when I ride to work.

Come and join me to celebrate how good it is. Next Wednesday. Brekky is on me.