Cycling is addictive.

Week 3: Between the terrible humidity (hovering around 90% for most of the week) and two types of unwell, I only cycled 3km this week. I figure that being sick is good enough reason to not do my cycling 3 days/week thing.

Week 4: Back on the cycling bandwagon. I rode 107km in total and I'm feeling pretty good about it! I managed to cycle most of the way to work one day and all the way to work on another, which is awesome. Thanks to my housemate's advice on which streets are the least steep and my incredible ability to go the wrong way and discover new and wonderful things, I have a route home which might not kill me.

I also managed to have my first injury-causing crash. I wasn't going particularly fast at the time though, so I only had some light scratches on my leg. Bad enough to still be there for a few days, not bad enough to get blood all over my socks or for me to get my first aid kit out :-p

Have a picture:

Showing off my ankles, like the hussy I am.

Week 5: Total of 80km this week. Nothing nearly as eventful to report as the photo above :-p

Another short break

Term 1 is starting next week (well, staff professional development for the year is next week), so I'm going to take that week off to focus on getting ready for the new year and the new students (whom I'll be meeting on Friday).

I will have a cycling update or two in there somewhere, for those (all two of you hehehe) who are interested in my progress.

Wish me luck, and I should be back on February 7th! =D

Bike "culture"

I've been reading BikeSnobNYC's blog, and came across the concept of the fixed-gear bike. I wasn't sure what one was, so I looked it up. I then started noticing them more and more:

• In the display windows of shops
• Roger David teaming up with some company which charges you an arm and a leg to send you a bunch of coloured parts that you pick online and then put together yourself
• Online, peopel going on about somethign called the "Fixed-gear revolution" (is that meant to be a pun?)
• Merchandise with this slogan:

All this has me asking myself one very crucial question: WHO THE HELL GIVES A DAMN??

I mean, seriously. The kind of bike you ride should depend on three things and three things alone:

1. What kind of cycling you do
2. What kind of terrain you're on
3. How much you can afford to spend

Beyond that, I fail to see the point of taking pride in how many gears your bike has, unless you're 10 years old and you have a mountain bike with, like, 18 speeds because the really cool grown-ups are 18 years old and you feel so grown up riding a bike that has that number somewhere on it.

I'm not saying there's no place for fixed-gear bikes; If you live somewhere to the West of Melbourne I'm sure they'd be fine. The place is as flat as a tack and you just have to hop on and start pedalling. It'd actually be kind of hilarious if you were on a flat plane and insisting on using every single one of your 58 gears to get the maximum use out of your bike.

On that same note, if you live anywhere East of the CBD (or even in the CBD, for that matter), you'd be mad to insist on riding a fixie, especially for ideological purposes, and even more so given that you can get a decent bike WITH gears for less money.

Seriously, Melbourne is made up of some whopping great hills (my own suburb has a high point of close to 170m above sea level) and while you may be able to custom-design your rainbow of a bike, it'll mostly end up sitting there and gathering dust once you realise that you can't go anywhere on it because the 10min cycle to the local shops has more humps that Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, and you'd be just as crazy to attempt surmounting one set as you would the other.

So I ask again: WHO CARES what kind of bike it is? It's a bike. It either serves its purpose or it doesn't. If it doesn't, sell it to someone who can use it and get a better one. But don't get a specific kind just because it's the in thing - that's just dumb.

Like this bike.

When inanimate objects talk to you

I have bought a fan for my room, because it's been too humid and gross to sleep without one moving the air around.

I've discovered that if I'm positioned in particular ways, the hum of the blades gets broken up and sounds like radio commentary. If I raise my arm, it sounds like radio commentary of a sporting event.

The end result is something like this:

Yes, I have feet. they're just very small and thin.

Quincy's Cooking Adventures: Pasta Sauce Recipe

This is seriously the best pasta sauce EVER. In my humble opinion ;-) Once you've done all the chopping, the rest of it takes about as long as cooking up the spirali does, so it's convenient in that respect :-)

Ingredients

Oil or butter
1 brown onion, finely chopped
1 red capsicum, finely chopped
200g champignon mushrooms, sliced
1 can of diced tomatoes
2tsp crushed garlic
500g minced beef
2tsp paprika
Shiraz
Tasty cheese
Salt

Method

1. Heat up the oil (or butter) in a saucepan and add the onion and capsicum. Start boiling water for the pasta itself at the same time as you put the oil into the saucepan, and add the pasta as soon as the water starts to boil.

I decided to use butter this time. This was a day before I discovered that I couldn't have dairy any more.

The onion is sitting in my Kambrook thingy that came with a hand blender. Oolon's mum was wonderful and gave it to me for Christmas! :-) That thing makes chopping onions an absolute breeze.

2. Once onion is brown and capsicum is softer, add the mushrooms and brown them. You can add the mushrooms and capsicum at the same time; it won't make much difference.

3. Add the garlic (though this can also be added after the beef, if you want to avoid burning it to the bottom of the pot)

4. Add the minced beef and add salt to taste. Stir until beef is brown.

I bought too much meat.

5. Add the diced tomatoes and allow to simmer until the pasta is done.

6. Once the pasta is strained, add paprika* and a dash of wine. Stir well.

It should be a nice earthy red colour. The wine darkens it, the paprika reddens it.

7. Simmer until the sauce is thick, particularly if you're planning to freeze any of it.

8. Serve with tasty cheese and a glass of that same wine.

So, there it is! My favourite pasta sauce recipe! :-) Enjoy!


*If you are making a tomato-baseed sauce and the recipe says to use any kind of sugar at all: DON'T. If you wish to sweeten a tomato-based sauce, use red paprika. That's what it is for.