TOUR DOWN UNDER!

Adelaide is currently hosting The Tour Down Under, the first pro series cycling race to be held outside of Europe, UCI version anyways, so its a pretty big deal, lots of big Euro teams attending. I had a chance to ride along with Stuart, my co worker and partner in crime for the first leg. As our work was a major sponsor we got to ride on the track in the car convoy before the race and during the warm up. Heres a few pics from the event....

Stuart looking for a bit more power from the SKODA beast! Engine is in the front mate!

Just looks tuff dont it? NOT! 0-100 in 18 seconds!

Lano and Stuart looking resplendent in our Tiser Sunday Mail T-shirts!

1500 Adelaide Now frisbies about to meet their new owners! Sorry to anyone I scored in the nose with these babies!

...Oh, and there was a bike race as well! C'mon, try harder you lards!

Heres my first video effort from bloggers video loader, hope it works!

Wow, two posts in one day, thought I would post up some recent pics....enjoy!

One of the locals saying g'day! He was a big sucker.

Lano and Chez, New Years Eve at the Cobbies! Zoolander poses me thinks...Blue Steel

New Years Day sailing at Murray Mouth, Sugars Beach...beautiful spot

Phoebe catching killer crabs at Sugars!

Nice one Santa, Phoebe with her new 2.0 Ezzy Kids rig, not sure she is ready to tackle the waves on Kyms Evo yet! Lookslike she will be a natural, look at the attempted tack on her first effort! More kids rig windsurfing updates to follow, needless to say, she did very well managed to sail for 4-5 metres first effort!

Phoebe gets some fantastic tuition!

Sailing into the sunset!

Waaaaay too long between drinks!

I am officially the slackest blogger in the world, been spending too much time on facebook and MSN.....oh well, I am back with lots of stories to tell.

Will start off with how much sailing we have done lately! Due to the poor condition of the River Murray lake sailing has been hard to do - need water. I was very upset to see people walking and riding bikes on the area of Goolwa lake where we sail, where I learned to sail as well!



Here's Kym sailing in the channel on a south westerly.

We have started sailing at the Coorong, Sugars beach, end of the Murray River. Its nice to sail in sea water, very refreshing. Some excellent speed sailing conditions at Sugars as well. I cracked a 28 knot run on Sunday, much to Kym's disgust, as her personal best was only 26.2 knots :) Who says we arent competitive?

I have made significant improvements with my sailing this summer, successfully completing at least 8 gybes this year alone.....woot!

City to Bay

Every year we here in Adelaide have a fun run from the city centre to the beach, Glenelg. I have never been a big runner, so never been interested in running the C2B. Over the last 9-10 weeks our work team, Agency Team, have been training our arses off, running approxiamately 18-25kms a week in an effort to build up to the 12kms that is the C2B! I even bought new shoes and comtemplated buying running and fitness magazines, but stuck with just getting some tips from gym instructors and the online tips from our generous employer!
Race day came up pretty quick, I was confident of making the distance, due to the fact I had accidently run the 12km distance twice, thinkning I was only running about 8kms! Lucky Im not an accountant. Anyway heres a few pics of the event.

Stuart and myself in our stunning running tops! Thankyou Sunday Mail!

Scotty, pretty happy with his 56 minutes .36 seconds in his first serious run! Top effort old chap!

And heres Lano, coming across the line, cutting a fantastic figure, 1 Hour 2 minutes and 37 seconds (yes I know it says 1.15.52 on the official clock, but your time actually starts when you cross the start line, which I didnt cross until the 13th minute mark, something to do with 23,000 people in front of me!!!!!!!!!!)

Now we were meant to kick on after the run, sink a few pints and carry on like we normally do, but this fitness bug has truelly bitten. I went with the usual suspects to the pub, had a pint, but it tasted unhealthy, what is going on!? So I left, caught a cab home and went to a birthday party for a mates wife at the local pub, nice beer garden, friends all around, beers flowing waa waa, but I just couldnt get into it. So a quick wink at Kym and we were out of there, down to Seacliff for a sail in a stormy. I watched, beers were making me sleepy.....Kym went out.

And to finsh off with, heres a photo form a recent team event, the annual Media Club Ten Pin Bowling night! The girls had their own team, Bowling Barbies (they won first prize - Nice cans!) and the boys went as 'The Dirty Sanchez' (we lost, but had a ball, hahahahahaha oh dear)

Robby Naish - Kanaha, June 06

Heres a video I recently edited, well had a play with, of Robby Naish going for a uick sail at Kanaha. It was the last day of our holiday in Maui last year, Kym had just finished a sail and was packing up. I was on the beach taking some last memory shots. I was chatting the our NZ friends and they had noticed a black labrador dog, they said it could be Robby Naish's dog. Next minute, Robby walks past, keys in his mouth, craziest looking board, hops in the water, sails out, blasts a big air, the most aggressive gybe I have seen, tacks high up in the wind and aims for a beach about 500 metres up the beach (probably his house)

My life was complete.

Dolphins off Christies Beach

Sorry for the lack of posting, been too busy looking at other peoples Blogs and not concentrating on my backyard, so to speak.


Last Sunday I was invited to be a crew member on my father in laws boat, I think its a Ross 740 sailing boat, its really good fun, always an adventure (always an adventure with spinnacer changes). We all had to be on deck at 10am for a full rigging of the mast and course debrief. I for once made my lunch, so pies and donuts were off the menu (plus I am training for a fun run in three weeks, so gotta step it up!)

Captain Murray the helm! Aye Aye sir!


We started raving at 12noon, wind was a variable inconsistant 7 knots, so slow going. There were 7 boats in the fleet, about five classes covered so racing wasnt going to be too close.

Anyway to cut a long story short, no wind after 1 hour, so doldrums.....race abandoned!

Lucky some dolphins rocked up to entertain us!

And lastly, dont buy your children face paints, as I found out, you will be used as the first experiment! Apparently I am meant to be a tiger!

Holidays Day 1

Started a week of holidays today, well yesterday really......went down the coast looking for wind and as the photos suggest there wasnt too much around! Gorgeous day at Middleton Point though.

Interesting trip down to south coast, got to the end of the freeway, Noarlunga, and could feel a real wobble coming from the front end and then banging, not good me thinks. So after my mechanical skills were tested, ie finding the button to release the bonnet, I found that the CV boot on the passenger side was torn off and the drive shaft looked a bit worse for wear. So a limp home for 20kms at about 50kms an hour. Only just made it, was making a hell of a racket when we got up the drive way. Mechanics did warn me a few weeks ago that this might happen. I feel an expensive week coming on......

Anyway heres a few shots of Middleton Beach today......

A few sets came through, only about 2 feet at the most, the mal riders were dominating.

This is the view from the carpark back to Goolwa and Day street.