Urban Gorilla Art and Innerspace Photography

It seems that since I tidied the garage and hung up my mountain bikes I’ve only been riding my Duchess, with a brief interlude with my path racer. The Duchess is really the perfect vehicle for exploring the quake ravaged heart of Christchurch as little by little we can get further into the city. This shrinking of the cordon has inspired me to create an installation of pieces which reflect my frustration at the loss of the city to demolition companies and the army, and also make me feel a little bit more like I am taking my city back. 

I spent a lovely 2 hours riding around the city setting up and photographing my tiny tableaus and have created a website – CBD Exiles – to celebrate their existence. It’s been a couple of weeks now and many of them are still in situ. I’m interested to see how long they last as more and more people return to the city.

I’ve also been Tweeding again. An epic 20km tweed ride along the Heathcote River, with plenty of pubbery and a little crazy BMX tracking. Unfortunately no racing took place as the evil Chumly Pogward injured his delicate back. Ahhh well, it’s probably for the best.

And in the biggest news of the last couple of weeks I headed in for arthroscopic knee surgery last Thursday, to tidy up some long existing meniscal tears and floaty bits of cartilage. The operation went well, but resulted in a very disappointing prognosis for my knee. I went back to the surgeon yesterday for my follow up appointment and was informed that my knee is “Munted”. This is NOT a work you want to have associated with anything you care about, your city, bike, house, sewer system, but especially not with a part of your body.

Then the lovely Mr Penny told me that it may not be a problem for a long time due to the fact I’m not fat (his words – he is truly a lovely man) and because I ride my bikes lots. Unfortunately he then went on to explain the baffling photo’s I’d received after my surgery (the squeamish should look away now). While they look like pictures of faraway planets (or to the more filthy minded something else) they are interior views of my knee showing the damage removed and the damage that means my knee is basically a ticking time bomb of falling apartness.

Bad streaming trendils

Bad lump of meniscus that was causing my knee to lock

Very old cartilage tear causing some locking

Random floating bits

What it boils down to is the cartilage inside my knee is so damaged that in places it is non-existent and that’s bad. To be honest, I’m kinda meh about the whole prognosis, I’ve had trouble with my knee since I was 14 now, it’s just a normal part of my life so I’m not too concerned. I’ll just ride my bikes lots and lots, stay strong and fit, and hopefully get 15 years out of it before I need a whole new knee. 

Scoring in the cartilage

The top right is just bare bone now - rather bad news

Nasty ulcer in the cartilage

Luckily with the help of the lovely Bastian I’ve healed up quickly from my surgery and am riding to work already.

I just need to get rid of this man-flu I currently have and I’ll be hitting the road and the trail again to build up for an epic ride on the Longest Day. In the meantime I’m going to start work on my lovely Empire for the Great Poms and Cassels Tweed Run in July. You should come along to it, it is going to be brilliant!

The L’Esprit – Complete

Sometimes fettling with old bikes is not all bread and roses. Sometimes it’s bruised and skinned knuckles, stripped threads and damaged, hard to replace parts. The L’Esprit has been all of these things. On Thursday morning (day off work) I began what I hoped was the final assembly process, but at lunchtime was called into the office. Being a diligent employee I downed tools and headed in.

Once work was over things just didn’t go well with the reassembly process. The thread had stripped off the tiny screw that attached the derailleur to the frame and my tired brain also struggled to remember how to attach it once a replacement was stolen off an old brake. Then I couldn’t get the newly rebuilt rear hub to the correct degree of tightness and I had a tube explode while I was polishing up a rim. All in all I became a little irritable with the bike and went to bed.

Unfortunately Friday was not much better with a hideous day in the office leaving me rather grumpy and impatient. Chain dramas were enough to send me to bed for an early night, knowing I had to be up bright and early to work on Saturday.

The problem was, Saturday was D-day. I needed to have the bike finished as a Rowdy Tweed Ride was planned for the evening and I really wanted my hubby to accompany me on this. In the end I bit the bullet and replaced the chain, which made me happy as everything was looking shiny and I wasn’t overly excited about attaching the rusty old thing back on the now beautiful bike. 

Built up it looked great and after a few tweaks and a couple of test rides and more tweaks it was ready for its night out. I felt so proud as my lovely hubby zoomed through Hagley Park, the bike looked great and so did he. I have only the Red Empire left to fettle, however I think I may leave her be for a while and perhaps tackle the creation of a Victorian Woman’s Cycling costume. You know, something a little less greasy. 

No photos of my beloved Bastoolio this week, just lots of the L’Esprit. Enjoy. 

Just to remind my dear, tolerant readers of how it looked before...

... and now like new after

Drive train is running great

Blinging cable guides

Cloth bar tape and some spray and wipe applied to the hoods and the cockpit is looking fine

Hub stripped, cleaned, regreased and polished. Looking like new

Mid Rowdiness at Smash Palace. Great fun was had by all

Tribes

Being a member of an active NZ Cycling Forum I’ve noticed that cyclists tend towards rather tribal behaviour. The roadies flock together in great bunches, and have secret and esoteric rules that must be obeyed. Their legs and machines are smooth and glistening and many will have a stable a different road bikes for different occasions.

Even more complicated is the mountain biker, whose tribe seems to fracture into more sub tribes with each passing year. There are the XC racers, sneered at by others as weight weenies and jeiboys. The trail and backcountry adventurers. The freeriders and their cousins the Downhillers, which contain within their ranks the infinitely mockable grommies. The jumpers and the urban trials riders. The relatively new tribe of 29ers.
Then there are those that fall into what I’ll call the hipster tribe. The singlespeeders, with their flair for the insane. The fixie riders. The tweed riders. The frocks on bikes women. The whole vintage/retro brigade, including the loonies on Penny Farthings.

Of course amongst all these tribes there are the crossover tribes, the cyclo-cross riders, the cycle tourers, the BMXers and of course the singlespeeders must be mentioned here.

Then finally lowest on the pecking order the recumbent riders.

Often the bicycles in your shed define your tribes and (sweeping and unfounded generalisation warning here) most cyclists will only have one or two types of bikes, even if their total number of bicycles numbers in the double digits. For some, their personality becomes an expression of their collection of bikes, for other their bicycles are an expression of their personality. I believe the last is true of me.

My shed contains 6 bicycles, all different, all ridden regularly and all make me grin. I have my BMX which makes me feel like a kid again and is stupidly fun. I have my singlespeed mountain bike which has taught me how to ride better and made me stronger. I love its simplicity. I have my road bike, which to be honest is more of a winter bike, although I do love the feeling of speed and power I get from riding it. I have my full sus XC bike which is still my favourite. It climbs like a dream, is awesome on the singletrack and can handle the downhill stuff too. I have my newest acquisition, my hardtail 29er. This bike handles completely differently from all my other bikes, it is insanely fast and a challenge to ride. And finally I have my Duchess, my shopping bike. It is this bike that I ride the most. It is my car. It makes me feel free, happy and something none of my other bikes do, attractive. Strange I know. It is this bike that is leading me down a path which will mean my statement that I have attained s-1 is wrong, but more on that later.

Firstly a quick replay of the awesome ride I had on Friday at Greenwood Park before the blasting and earthquake remediation on the road up there closes it for easy access. (It is open Sundays and in the evening from 6pm). My first lap was a bit of a muppet fest to be honest, but it was great fun and by the bottom of the track I was keen for another lap. The ride up the Summit Rd is both lovely, with no traffic, and in one place quite scary, with a badly cracked rock face looming above – waiting to deposit a boulder or two on the slow rider’s head.

Not only does Greenwood Park have outstanding singletrack, the views are exceptional

The second lap was much better. The thing about Greenwood Park is that it is a lovely combination of flowing stuff and really rocky technical stuff. Only recently have I gotten good enough to ride it, previously I freaked out about the rocks instead of just keeping pedalling. I’ve discovered Greenwood Park is a mind game, everything (well apart from one rocky uphill pinch at the end that I have no idea how to ride) is rideable.

In the beginning there was a climb

After my second lap I was getting cold and having pushing my legs harder up the road my tummy was grumbling. It was just what I needed.

Ahhh, tricksy narrow rocks, you won't catch me again!

Then on Sunday, I crossed a line. On Friday, when not riding, I spent most of the day in various op-shops (pining for the quality ones in Dunedin), sussing out an outfit for a Tweed Ride. I was in two minds about going on this ride, firstly I didn’t know anyone else in this group of velocipedes (velococycsts? velotweeds?) , I always find new people intimidating; and secondly I’d been warning that joining this ride could well be a slippery slope to further bike ownership. Putting these worries aside I donned what I hoped was an appropriately period styled if not entirely tweedish outfit and cycled off on my lovely Duchess to the nearby meeting place.

A Cheesecutter is the equivilent of a helmet

I was immediately welcomed into the group, and I really shouldn’t have worried. After all I had in common with these people a love of bicycles, a love of dressing up and a love of things from a bygone area. After chatting and drooling over the many simply beautiful and sometimes amusing bicycles, we were off.

I lusted muchly over these two bikes in particular, with the one on the right being my favourite by a nose

It was a wonderfully leisurely ride through the park, with the crowds entering the Ellerslie Flower Show seeming to appreciate our dapper appearance and glorious machines. On through town we were momentarily halted by the ever shifting road closures and then it was onto Pomeroy’s via the broken riverside roads for some well earned refreshments. I took mine in the form of Pimms, a most civilised drink before noon on a Sunday. Revitalised it was back onto the bikes and onto the Pegasus Arms for yet more refreshment and then off to Hagley Park for a brief, but energetic turn of speed in the form of a sprint race round the outside. I have to say my Duchess performed admirably, and was only really hampered by my need to hold my skirt down while pedalling vigorously.

The Tweed riders collection is quite diverse..

... and lust provoking

After such exertions it was back to our starting spot for the obligatory photos and more talking of the cod shite. I enjoyed this ride immensely and can say that I have been fully converted to the joy of the Tweed Ride by this single outing. In fact I have been trawling the pages of Trademe seeking an appropriate old bike to turn into a singlespeed to race at the velodrome for the next ride. Thanks so much to the Tweed Riders for welcoming me into your group. Such Fun!

Racing time!

Refueled and ready to ride

And to round off this rather lengthy diatribe here is a gorgeous photo of my monster’s black jelly bean feets. I just want to nom them.

From one extreme to another

All the training I’ve been doing seems to have had a strange effect on my mind and I’ve started to develop a disturbing masochistic streak. It was this fascination with pain which lead me to get my dust covered bike back out of its secure and restful home and take it up Kennedy’s Bush. To race again. The day after doing the Molesworth. Really really fast. I was basically saying “Yes, the Molesworth hurt me a lot, but I’m feeling a tiny bit better, please can I have some more pain”! What has happened to me??!!

Pinning it and grinning into the tight corner at the bottom of the singletrack

It was a beautiful sunny day and the track is my favourite little piece of singletrack for descending. The laps were short, it was Short Track racing after all, and most importantly I only had to ride for 20 minutes. Surely I could handle that, even after the Molesworth. I was running late so ended up riding harder up the hill to get to the start than I intended. I was surprised that my legs weren’t feeling too bad. There weren’t many of us in the Recreational division, so we lined up on the start line and I decided to give it absolutely everything I had for the first lap and see what happened. I managed to get into 3rd into the singletrack and was keeping up with the guys in the front the whole way through the descent, yay madcore skills, but as soon I hit the climb the rest of the boys streamed past me and I was hurting. This was a very very stupid idea. I managed to stay in my middle ring and cranked out the first lap in good time. Into the 2nd lap and I could tell it was all over. Managed to push fairly hard through the singletrack, but backed off a little in a couple of places to try and get my breath back. Up the farm track and things were bad, still stayed in middle ring but vision was going blurry and all the pain from yesterday was back in my legs and had found some new friends to add to the party.

Third lap was just a blur of pain, descending still good, hoping not to get lapped. Managed to hold the boys off on the climb and was back into the singletrack for my last lap. Pinned my ears back and went for it down the track and found my legs had absolutely nothing in them for the climb and was quickly lapped by the leaders. Down into grannies to crawl over the line at the top. Knew I was broken so didn’t use the last 3.5 mins to flog myself unconscious. I just lay face down on the ground with my shaking legs and blades of grass up my nose. It was very very fun and very very sore (the racing, not the blades of grass – they were just a bit tickly). Next week I’ll have fresher legs and hopefully put on a better effort.

The Sport category only had 3 entrants which was a bit of a poor showing. They still flogged themselves ragged around the short course for 25 minutes. Then was the Expert race and it was looking to be a goodie. With Anton Cooper, Oliver Whalley (complete with lovely belt driven singlespeed ventana), Craig Tregurtha, Kyle Wood, Sara Taylor and even Craig Sharratt lining up to push each other to the limit. With a field of 11 the race was extremely fast and furious with Anton completing laps in a scorching 2mins 20 secs per lap! It was a brilliant race to watch. With the course being so short and having a few technical challenges for the over-enthusiastic it was great to see the amazing skills of these fast talented riders, all pushing their limits. It was almost as much fun watching this race as it was racing in mine. I can’t wait till next week, and if you’re in Christchurch next Sunday I’d highly recommend you come along for a look and maybe a race (especially if you’re of the female persuasion), they’re only short!
Check out: http://www.singletrack.org.nz/event-calandar/short-track-series/

And the prize for defending the world from roaming hordes of the undead is – a lovely handcrafted ninja throwing star!

Clockwise fromtop right: me, Mops, Rita, Nic, Anna

Saturday was the Giant 12hr Day Nighter at McLeans Island and our team was there to protect all from any wandering zombies. We were the Swine Flu Survivers Zombie Killing Mtb Army on SingleSpeeds (SFSZKMASS), and we were thoroughly prepared. Our team consisted of Rita “Double Agent” Langley, a specialist in zombie mob infiltration and endurance missions. Anna “Skull Crusher” Ross, lethal with a baseball bat and a danger to herself and others. Mops “Medic!!” Newall, the Florence Nightengale of the group, tough as nails and with a mouth to match, but always willing to go to the aid of a fallen comrade. Ring-in Nicole “Sniper” Symons, fast as lightening and crack shot, called in at the last minute to replace Michelle “Kill them all!” Peterson, who was taken down by zombie scum with a nasty bite to the hip. We can only pray she’s not infected. And finally me, Melanie “Field Commander” Dunlop, with the boots to kick the team in the arse and a voice to lay waste to all comers.

When doing battle with zombie, a large arsenal is vital for survival

The day started off in freezing style, hail pelted me as I packed the last vital supplies into the car. Anna arrived on time, a good omen for the rest of the day and we were off. Together we managed to secure a primo corner site with great lines of sight that would prevent us being flanked by the undead. In no time our camp was set up and coffee was brewing on the brazier, we were prepared for all eventualities. Rita bravely volunteered to lead us out and take the first two laps and soon she was lost in a sea of riders racing across the paddock to try and squash through the 2 rider wide scaffolding underpass. Rita set a blistering pace from the word go and we kept the camp clear of the undead scum and encouraged our fellow contestants on with kind words and soft voices.

As Rita and Mops rode the first 4 laps I decided that the 32:15 I had on was a wee bit tall for my feeble legs with the wet energy sapping grass and the nasty head winds up the stop banks and through the exposed section. A quick change back to 32:16 and I was feeling much happier by the time it was time for me to ride. It was still freezing so I decided to try riding one lap in my knee high Doc’s. They were ok on the flat and through the swoopy bits, but rubbish climbing the stopbanks and extremely slippery any time they got wet in the enormous puddles that were dotted around the course. Still it was fun riding in inappropriate footwear and all the boys that passed me liked them! I turned in a pretty good first lap which I think was about 32 minutes, but I’m not really sure. We checked our times and discovered there was a bit of a stuff up with our transponder (ours was missing when I went to get it, so we had number 21 instead of number 535), but that was quickly sorted, and we found ourselves placed 2nd. There was much rejoicing at camp with this news.

Only an undead freak could ride one of these!

We continued battling the zombie masses at camp, liberally peppering our competitors with potato pellets (zombie brains), encouragement and insults. Not to mention chasing any lurkers with guns blazing and baseball bat at the ready. Mops also went to the rescue of a fallen 6 hr solo competitor who was suffering from cramp and used her healing powers to get him back on the bike.

Mops administers first aid to a fallen competitor

For some reason we couldn’t get many people to oblige us and “DO A SKID!!!!”, but the few we did get were impressive and led to great raucous cheers. Rita, Mops, and Nic put in the hard yards and did double laps, being strongly motivated with threats of beatings. Anna and I took turn about to do single laps and the sun put in a very welcome appearance. There was still some wind, but it was no where near as awful as the morning. My laps felt better and better as the day progressed and I was loving the course, especially the flowing new section through the trees. The exposed new section was not as much fun, with its strange bump placements and constant headwind.

Zombie killing machine showing the spoils of the hunt

I even managed to pass quite a few people this year and the standard of passing was much better than last year with everyone being pretty considerate on my laps. The course was a good balance of hurty struggling parts and super fun bits where I was pretty much spinning out with the tailwind. It turns out all the roadie riding I’ve been doing has really paid off because my lungs were up to the task of the spinney gear. My throat was feeling worse for wear from the extreme heckling, so I rested it for short stretches when I wasn’t riding to make sure I could go the distance.

Zombies can sneak up from behind, however are easily fooled by this ruse!

We were lucky to be visited in our camp by plenty of cool people who came for a chat, to steal some of our warmth, to bring us delicious chocolate cup cakes (thanks so much Rachel, they were divine), and add to the lunacy we were trying to spread (yay! Michelle). There was also a very exciting moment when the evil zombies released a double ezi-up into the wind and it came rolling over the camp site towards us. Lucky a shiny new Range Rover stopped it from impaling us all, but it was touch and go. We never found the nest of zombies that threatened to lay us low, but we renewed our hunting with great vigour, smashing zombie brains with our bat whenever the opportunity arose.

Rita's amazing infiltration skillz almost result in a lost head

As the sun set we cranked up the fire again and sorted out the final lap order. As other teams stood round with clip boards carefully tracking each time, we cheered for the brave souls battling in the 12 hour solo. As other teams warmed up on wind trainers, we chased people with guns and bats and motivated them to try harder. And as darkness fell we got a wee bit serious and decided to go hell for leather at the end. I have to say I was feeling pretty nervous about doing the penultimate lap, however I was also relishing the chance to get a night lap in.

Zombie brain baseball, a fun family pursuit

As I set off there was next to no wind, but my legs were hurting bad. I kept pushing as hard as I could and by the time I got into the singletrack I was feeling good. I was in the hurt box in a way I’ve never been in before, but it was actually good and I was flying through the night. The whole last lap was a blur of passing, pain, grinning, grinding and joy. I truly loved this lap, it stands out in my mind as the best piece of riding I’ve ever done. I felt really fast and when I rolled into the camp I was completely and utterly spent and could only dimly comprehend how stoked my team mates were with my ride. I was grinning madly, but also struggling to stand and collapsed happy into the enormous pillow I’d brought with me for just such an occasion. I felt like I’d finally done a sub-30 minute lap, but the results say I only shaved 30 seconds off my time.

Nic put in a scorching last lap and we hoped we’d held onto second. With military precision, of course, we disposed of the zombie corpses littering the camp and packed it away and headed to the prize giving. Fully armed, we formed a protective circle with Mops standing sentry and waited for the results. Finally the women’s category was announced and our name was called. We got third and were all completely stoked (even though 2nd was a mere 10 secs faster). We went out there to have fun and ride our singlespeeds hard, not to win anything. I’m pretty sure that we had the most fun of any team that day and we certainly showed that you don’t need to take team’s events seriously to do well. We all received our ninja throwing stars and also managed to snake the best dressed prize, despite the crowd’s lack of appreciation for our zombie fighting skills. It was a great event, well run and more fun than just about anything else I can think of. Thanks to my fabulous team mates for getting us onto the podium, my first ever, and those who came along to say hi and support us for making it such a brilliant day. And huge thanks to my hubby for putting up with me this weekend!