Yup, there it is folks. Al and Matt are tying the knot finally! This promises to be a great time, and no doubt I’ll see a lot of you there. If you’d like to read more about the wedding, why not head over to their Wedding Website?
Hey gang, just wanted to let you know that my new domain is born! I finally broke down and got my own domain name, to more accurately reflect the direction this site is going to take. Please say hello to https://activesteve.com! Over the next few months, I’ll be totally re-formatting this website to become my more ‘professional’ race-oriented site. I’ll introduce a new style, some new features, and hopefully sub-sections. You’ll still get the same riveting tales, but differently organized. I’ll keep personal and travel tales in one area, and all race-related goodies elsewhere. This is all part of my re-branding strategy that I’ll be undertaking in order to better market myself in hopes of securing some sponsorship deals for next year (no, not CDN Gov. sponsorship, but real ones!). With all the racing and travelling for races I plan to do, including NZ, I need to start soliciting people for help! In the meantime, if you’ve got links to this website, you might want to rename them to activesteve.com, in order to make sure the traffic gets attributed to my ‘official’ site from now on! Thanks, and please stay tuned for the exciting changes (as long as I can find the time to implement the
Thought I’d pop in another post on the progress being made on the bar front. Things have been going so slowly that I ended up actually taking a day off work to get some work done on this project! Actually, I had a ‘personal day’ that was going to expire if I didn’t use it by the end of the month so I figured it would give me a chance to get a little extra work done on the bar, not to mention get laundry and my taxes done! Pictured to the left here is my attempt at capturing what the oak pieces look like after two coats of stain and three coats of varnish. Shiny, isn’t it? What you see is the product of almost 2 weeks of effort. Every step takes me an evening, because you have to let the stain / varnish dry thoroughly before either sanding it or re-coating it. Plus, most of these pieces had to have both sides done, doubling the time! The good news is that I have about 2 other ‘groups’ of pieces that I have to work on, and most of these are simpler pieces with a lot of 1-sided finish coming up. After those are all done, it’ll be the true building time. Can’t wait for that stage! I have to question the people who submitted testimonials on the website where I got the design saying it took them 3 weeks to build the bar! Okay, maybe they truly meant ‘build’ and not prepare. In my opinion, there’s no way on God’s green earth someone could possibly do all the cutting, routing, sanding, staining, varnishing, dry fitting, and putting together this whole bar! NO WAY!! Maybe if they worked full time on it. Naw. Granted, I had to learn a lot of things along the way (namely how to properly use a table saw and router), but just these last few steps of finishing take so long…
Wow! What a day. This was truly a day of the biggest so far. I’m not even sure where to start with this one. I had the steepest ascent today. The longest descent, the most rain, the longest ride, the slowest average speed, and so on and so on. But you know what? It was a great day all told. I think it’s almost safe to say that I’ve gotten over my earlier apprehension, and I’m now ready to get on with this trip. Realistically speaking, it has become clear to me that the body is really an amazing thing. I have had to allow myself a little extra time to adapt to ‘life in the saddle’. Although it’s only been four real days with the weight behind me, I’m definitely feeling more at ease. I hit a top speed of 62km/h today going down a hill, what a thrill. But of course the thought of wiping out at that speed with all the weight is quite scary too. Oh well, taste death to live life, right? Anyway, read on for a little extra detail about what made today pretty cool and special for me.
17/01/08
Hello hello hello. What have we here? Some curious readers? Well, I guess the post and picture really don’t leave all that much to the imagination, do they? You already knew that I was planning on summiting Taranaki today, and, well, I did. And rather quickly at that. I had all sorts of concerns vis a vis weather, time to climb, clouds rolling in, finding a way there, and so on and so forth, but yet again, things worked out splendidly for the little cyclist that could. I’m super-glad that I tacked on this side trip on my North Island touring schedule. As it turns out, the weather was brilliant for my climb, and everything was great. I’ve put a map up on the ole blogosphere for you to check out. Yep, there’s a lot of pictures to go through, but hey, they’re worth it. The stats are for just the climb and descent part, not including the drive up to the mountain, in case you are wondering. For more details, read on.
