No Lonely Guinea Pigs

After an obscenely expensive and booring flight we arrived in Perth last night. I had 3 minutes to spare when I board, plenty of time. About 10 minutes after we arrived Wal and Mattie came to pick us up. Wal was driving a pretty amazing old troop transport that functioned as a bike transport at the time. We got to Wals house and had a couple rounds of beer followed by a couple more and it was off to bed.
This morning we where great by great hospitality from Wal and Kristy in the form of espresso drinks and bananna chocolate chip muffins. We are now lounging around, enjoying the sun and waiting to head to the courts. I’m looking forward to getting the courts up, getting some beers in, playing pickup and catching up with friends.

“He said we out nerded Rivendell“. This is the quote of the trip thus far. Coming from Nick at Cheeky Transport in Sydneys Newtown. This comment was after to my amazement they had an obscure touring tool that Rivendell didn’t. It was the Stein Mini Cassette Lock. I’d only found out about this tool a day before leaving CA so ordering was out of the question. If anyone would have it in the Bay Area it would be Rivendell. While they did have some Stein tools they did not have this one. So I was quite excited when I happened to notice Cheeky down a side street as it had been recommended I check it out the night before. My mission at the moment was gauze but I ended up buying this and looking into a handlebar bag.

First glimpse of the shop was a huge SURLY sticker on the door, my kind of people. Couple of nice builds right up from, a Karate Monkey with a Cheeky Monkey sticker on it. A plain blue rando bike with lugs very reminiscent of Rivendells (they where, it wasn’t). Stack of Ortlieb panniers, some nice canvas bags, a large bearded gentleman wrenching at a stand.

I ended up getting the Ortlieb handlebar and for being in Australia the price was really good. Seems they really support the commuter and touring crowd. This is a very nice shop and I will be my local shop from here out. Seems to be everyones local and easy to see why.

Ticketing was listed as opening at 2:00pm, I was done at 2:08, first cocktail within 15 minutes of that. The touring bike was over maximum weight but since it was a second checked item and declared as a bike I didn’t get charged for the other being overweight (not over max). So after a couple minutes moving 4kg from one to the other I was good to go. Hopefully my Sydney to Perth flight will be as easy. Same boxes, same weight different airline. Back to the bloody mary.

In just about one month I am moving to Australia. What a better way to kick off a new country than a bike tour eh? How about a (5513km * .62)mile bike tour?

Here is the plan.

March 16th or 17th: By this time I should be well settled into being homeless and have everything except my track bike and daily needs packed up. On one of these days we’ll pack up and head down to Los Angeles.

March 18th 0300-0400 (about): Will race for the third time in the now infamous Wolfpack Hustle: Marathon Crash Race.

March 18th (at some more reasonable time of day): Will get dropped off at LAX and wait for a 2200ish flight. Hopefully not getting so drunk I will not be allowed to board. Actually with any luck I will just check my bags and head back to DTLA.

March 19th 2012: I will never experience this day. Hope it is a really shitty one.

March 20th 0800ish: I will arrive in Sydney Australia.

March 20th/21st: Jetlag and pickup.

March 22nd: Probably more Jetlag, hopefully (doubtfully) more pickup. Flight (evening) to Perth with polo bike and touring bike.

March 23rd: Pickup, boozing, catching up with friends (eh, its only been since Nov for a lot of them).

March 24th/25th: BOOOOZE, I mean AHBPC 2012 (booze).

March 26th: Drink up the tears of Melbourne, recover, pawn my polo bike (off on someone headed back to Sydney, love ya!). Adventure on!

1 week, 4 major cities, (15000km+ * .62) miles and 3 bikes later I will start what is planned for right now as a (5500km * .62) mile tour from Perth to Sydney, hugging the coast, passing throught (R)Adelaide, Melbooorne and back up to Sydney where I might have to find a job (fuck!). hhhhmmokay… back to pretending to pack.

Last week while desperately looking for a distraction from packing I was sorting through some odd and ends of aluminum camping cookware. This was a day or so after I had seen this post. This got my gears feebly turning. I like to bake, I like to camp, I like to bike tour. How can I get these all together?

I came across a piece of campware that I had no idea what was intended for. An insert with perforation along the bottom and a ring at the top. The outer section wasn’t perforated but had about a dozen pinholes. A friend identified it as a large coffee maker. The insert is removed and attached to the bottom then water was put in the top and trickled down into the lower section containing the coffee.

I already have a nice espresso maker so this was becoming an oven! It appeared to have a sufficient air gap for how small it was.

So I popped upstairs a whipped together a simple biscuit style dough (1 cup flour, 1tbsp baking powder, 1tsp salt, 4(ish)tbsp butter). I then stuffed some cheese in this sucker and dropped into the over. Worth noting this is perfect size for about 1 cup of flour. I cooked it for about 45 minutes but the edge color did not change after about 30. I’m fairly certain it was done about there.

Second take was later that night, I decided to make another quick dough and bought some rasberries on my way out to a ride. We rode out to the Keyhole and I busted the stove out again. Stuffed the berries in and cooked for just under 30 minutes and it turned out perfectly.

OK, PICTURES!