Goalkeeper

Ev has been promoted to the second team goalkeeper (the AP schools squad has four teams) and while he's a bit pissed off with the promotion ("but I want to play with my mates; I don't know anyone in the second team") he is TERRIBLY pleased with his new goalkeeper's kit.  Ready for action on Saturday.

Autumn and the rains

Its one of those blissful long weekends here - happily, a Monday, considering where we are right now. I got up early on Sat morning to head out on my bike - then played tennis - and so by 11am was feeling properly ready for some relax - in preparation for the village party kicking off at 5pm.  By lunch-time the rains descended - a deluge - which had stopped by 5pm in time for the trip down to the village hall - but man - in sweltering heat and completely bizarre humidity - inside a cloud basically.  Drenched shirts in no time.  Nasty.

Heading down with Ange and Ev - Aiden's off on a rugby camp - the air, literally steam

Good crowd at the village hall already, big banner and flags, and much celebration of a new temple down near the water.

People heading up through the foliage with their kids - very jungle-in-Asia feel to this photo I thought.

Our table - laughed at the size difference between Trev and Ev - two letters and 110kgs.  

Much later on, Ev ignoring the expansive behaviour.

The project

Homework has arrived, and with it projects.  Ev is doing a unit on Explorers (I think, or something along those lines) and so had a mini project to go to some place that he'd not been to before, and describe it and why it was interesting - and then there was an optional section on maps which you could add on.  Optional doesn't really move Ev (which is a pity, because I was keen to hide a lego-man in a tree, take the GPS co-ordinate, and then write a riddle to make a treasure map type challenge for him to lay down for his class-mates.  He was having none of that, and I decided that I should probably try to grow up and not be doing this of my own accord - besides, no doubt his lazy-ass classmates would have been equally moved).  I digress.  So Ange suggested we go to a temple (called the Fat Tong Man Tin Hau Temple, Tai Miu for short, go figure) which is a short walk from the CWB club gates, and which Ev had not been to.  Of course I have been there before (some or other project of Aiden's - teachers being about as lazy as students when it comes to doing new things - but man, I must have been there with my eyes closed).  Two things that I discovered about the place this time, was that the first bit of it was built in 1266, (hey!?) and there is an inscription on a rock next to the temple which was done in 1274 - making it the oldest known writing in Hong Kong.  Pretty cool. That's quite a chunk of history that.  1274 was the year of the birth of Robert the Bruce, and the death of Thomas Aquinas.  It is also the origin of the Kamikaze - the divine wind - that helped the Japanese repel Kublai Kahn's warriors.  Amazing.  Above is where it is in Hong Kong.

Ev at the top of the path that goes down to the temple - appropriately dressed in his Eiffel Tower t-shirt (which incidentally, was built six hundred and a few years later).

The Temple court-yard as it is today - Ev adding some dynamism to the photo.

The temple has its own public jetty - I liked this photo for the diagonal and the old Chinese boat in the background.  Very South China Sea feel to this pic, for me.

Here is the temple from the end of the jetty; a dude fishing; Ev heading back at speed.

I convinced him to wear my running watch so that he could track where he'd been on a map - that's how far I could advance the whole map thing without it becoming an issue.  Clearwater Bay Marina is in the bottom right of the pic.

What I would be riding - and you really have to do this some time

OK, regarding the comment below, that there are few things that could take you around the world under your own steam for that ... this is the thing.  Just in case you ever get the urge to go bike touring (and I cannot even start to describe how completely awesome it is) - in my opinion, this is the best all round value for money serious touring bike available.  For less than a tenth of the orange fantasy below, the cult-status Surly Long Haul Trucker (this being the disc version - the Disc Trucker) - is the absolute business.  What I love about this thing is how carefully the bits are thought out - mechanical disk brakes - not hydraulics - which use the same cables as regular bike brakes (so you can get parts anywhere).  Bullet-proof frame.  Cheap front derailleur, top quality rear.  Great rims and hubs.  Plenty of attachment points.  Loooong wheel-base, so nice and stable when loaded.  Made of steel.  Just a real touring bike (and by all accounts a jol to ride as a commuter too).  It even has a frame slot for spare spokes - the good people at Surly who build it, clearly did their homework.

This one without its racks and bags - but I think you get the yak thing in the background free (the guy who posted this pic on his blog was raving about the delights of riding this - and I quote: "I really should have had one of these years ago".

When I say loaded - this is what I mean - here is loaded.  And another point - never put a kickstand on a bicyle - it is the best way to immediately stuff the frame up.  This is what sticks are for.

The photo above comes off a lovely blog called The Wandering Nomads, run by a young couple who have been properly bitten by the touring bug, you could say - 20,000 kms worth on these bikes.  Its worth a look http://awanderingphoto.com/ as is the title photo - how fantastic does that look?

Here is a pimped-up version for city commuting - but in P-town I guess that just means sucking fumes all morning and then getting mowed down just before arriving at one's destination.  I cannot believe the volume of cars now on your roads.  Of course if every person flying solo in a car were to swap it for a bike... it would be amazing.

Finally, a blast from the past in the early 90's - and absolutely no-one could I find who was keen to do this with me, so ended up having to go solo. Jackie very kindly lent me a camera in Knysna and a couple of rolls of film.  So glad she did because I treasure these memories.

Somewhere outside East London, Kidds Beach (?) taken by Geordie's then girlfriend Kathy Brooker

Taking a break somewhere near Swellendam

On dirt roads in the mountains near Villiersdorp

Something special

Spent some time this weekend thinking about bicycle touring, and how that was amongst the best things I've ever done, despite then having to do it alone - not my preferred condition.  Of course this includes thinking about doing it again (where, when, how, with whom - and modifying my bike how?)  I remember the stuff that I learned on my old bike - how I ended up modifying that - ensuring multiple handle bar positions, taking weight off shoulders, rebuilding the back wheel with different spokes for load.  And then I thought well that was twenty something years ago - so things will have changed - though my learning would to me still apply.  So into the world of the top end touring bike, thinking if you check these out, you can work out modifications for your own.  And amidst it all, I came across this, which is, the very end of perfection for long distance touring - the Co-Motion Pangea.  Made me laugh, because it looks like such a plonker of a bike (when I was growing up, before mountain bikes, bikes that looked like this were simply called a "dikwiel") - but this is so absolutely hi-tech art - touring perfection - and about R140,000 for the pleasure (and if people think, woa, that's a lot for a dikwiel, I'd have to agree, though point out that there are very few things that would literally take you around the world under your own steam, for that).

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Marina and weekend

The boys are always keen to hit the marina, so they can kick a ball around on the field.  I took a camera and went for a walk around to the other side; inky water, threatening sky in front...

The old boat stack - bamboo scaffolding set up, but looks like its been there for a while.

Fishing is banned in the marina - which explains why there are good schools of GT clearly visible in the water

In the shadow of this boat, a school of tarpon looking fish

Back home, table tennis tournament with the irrepressible and super-subby Jordan

Holly showing off her wild and wonderful whiskers

Mechanical day - ending with country music at the bottom

It's been another sweltering polluted bit of nastiness weatherwise - typhoons running up the coast to Taiwan and Japan, scooping everything filthy and hot off the top of Southern China and bringing it down to us.  So when you can't delight in the outdoors, perhaps time to indulge in a dismantling of the stuff that transports you there when you can.

So I decided to dismantle and service my beach-bike (which I have been loving riding) - and why would I fool around with something working?  Can't be helped.

What's unusual about it is that it has a hub mounted eight speed gearbox,  rather than a derailleur, and a belt drive.  I bought it second hand - been looking for one for a number of years - and it's four years old, seems to have been very well cared for.  The big thing about gearbox hub bikes (called IHG bikes) are that they don't require regular maintenance - but a bit car-like, they do require servicing (and I'm not sure what this one's service history is like.  I went down to the Hang Hau bike shop and asked the guy there if he could service it, he said no way, never seen one of those before, let alone worked on one. So onto the web it was, and then into the tools - and off on a bike-geek adventure.  I had lots of help of course.  Ev kocked the dismantled bike over.  Holly pawed the bits that I'd lined up on the table.  Aiden watched it all.  I think (hope like hell) that I got it all right, certainly got it all apart, cleaned and inspected it, greased it up, and then back together.  There was one alarming loud clunk sound while testing it (but this has not repeated ... and all seems to be fine :-/

So this is what it looks like - something along the lines of those before-your-time 3 speed things, just a modern and sophisticated one, with eight speeds.  You have to get through all those layers (note the belt drive - not a chain sprocket.  All those coloured dots want to be lined up in various ways when you are re-assembling it all).

Inside the hub, when you've broken into it through all the layers - and one especially anti-christ snap-ring - looks like this (not my pic this one).

Also not my picture (clearly) but that all dissembled looks like this (and I am left wondering which one of these pieces breaking represents the loud clunk?)  I did not take the thing apart to this extent (again, obviously, or I would be swearing like a devil instead of typing this).

Learned quite a bit too about all this.  Grease for example, is complicated stuff.  I've got the wrong grease in the thing, it turns out - no worries though, time to change that to marine grease, with aluminium thickener - want to know why?  Check this out if you are determined to get into the abstraction of lubrication and weather-sealing: http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/functions-of-grease/ (and believe me, Bob is the guy).

Turns out the absolute rolls-royce of gear hubs is this one, the Rohloff Speedhub - it is a beautiful piece of German engineering at its best, apparently lasts longer than the pyramids, has very near to the same energy efficiency as a direct chain drive derailleur system - and has 14 gears (going to find an old one in some garage one day). Pretty cool.

Watched the second iteration of True Detective - loved it, but not with the ferocity I felt for the first.  Sound-track is divine too.  Do you like country music?  Didn't think so, can't imagine who would.  But check out this - just give it one try: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwVX4cG6F9s (she's the soundtrack, though not this song).  This is the soundtrack - an astounding wonderfulness for me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjg43nzSYck