GALFROMDOWNUNDER UPOVER

NEW VIDEO: Booking it along the Amazon with PACTOUR

2012-01-11T20:02:00.000-08:00

The team with a mission! (Thanks to Thai Neave Photography for the loan of the GoPro fish eye camera).

90 SECOND MOVIE TRAILER

PACTOUR Peru Projects from Galfromdownunder on Vimeo (slightly higher quality than the one on YouTube below. Maybe.) Latin groove by Kevin MacLeod

Delivering books to remote schools along the Amazon.

I'm just back from my second expedition in Peru with cycling legend and tireless philanthropist Lon Haldeman of PACTOUR.

The 17-day, non-stop itinerary involved several charitable projects: a shopping trip for a home for abused and homeless girls; delivering books to remote schools along the Amazon; visiting two schools that PACTOUR built near the jungle town of Iquitos; inviting street kids to an impromptu meal, and buying supplies for the Puerto Ocopa orphanage that we stumbled upon back in 2004. Lon has led this same trip almost every year for the past decade, so it's become an ongoing concern, attracting donations from many of his cycling clientele.

Nuns look after the 45 kids at the Puerto Ocopa Orphanage where we took food and clothing for 3 months.

My first visit, in 2004, resulted in a feature-length video, 16,000 Feet on a Friday: Biking the World's Highest Paved Road which portrayed, among other things, my gasping, slightly blue mug as I tried to bike over that 16,000 foot bump at a centipede's pace ... here's 1 minute of gasping for you.

16,000 feet ... ohhh, my head feels like lead ...

This year, we drove it, while some of the crew biked sections. Without the gradual acclimatization afforded by biking at a steady 5-6 mph, we all got a little bit sick, despite ingesting No-Doz, Coke, Mate tea, loads of coffee and unbearable amounts of sleep-depriving Latino rap courtesy of every taxi driver's mp3 player.

1. Shopping for the Chosica Girl's Home. A generous Dutch non-profit runs "The House of Gina," a girls home in the attractive town of Chosica, 35 km outside Lima. It's a safe haven for abused and homeless niñas, and our contribution was to take them all shopping to buy some treats.

What are little girls all over the world made of? Pink diamonte shades!

Gina was a little girl who sadly drowned. The home was named in honor of her.

Little Aracely (below), who Lon met 6 years ago in the remote, dusty town of Yurinaki, is now one of the local PACTOUR crew. Although she has a loving mother, her family are very poor and she is lucky to have secured a spot at the House of Gina.

Aracely, now one of PACTOUR's local crew members - is a terrific interpreter.

The cyclists in the crew included four Americans and two Peruvian competitive cyclists - sisters Alessandra and Samantha, currently national champions in their age groups. The cyclists leapfrogged the rest of the crew in taxis over the 3-day stretch from Chosica to Tarapoto, the jumping off point for boat trips along the Amazon and its tributaries.

Peruvian women's cycling champ Alessandra Davila

2. Delivering books to remote schools along the Amazon

Buying books in Lima, for the jungle schools of the Amazon

An unforgettable segment of the trip was the 3-day, 2 night banana boat cruise from Tarapoto to Iquitos along the Amazon and confluences.

View from the Eduardo VIII "banana boat" at 6am, somewhere along the Rio Amazon.

12 bundles of goodies await six lucky schools.

Being the "first class" passengers at $US60 per person, we slept in cabins and hammocks on the top deck and were served three really quite decent meals a day, prepped by the cook in the deck below.

The regular class passengers on the deck below vied for hammock space and brought Tupperware eat meals from the kitchen.

After bundling the books into 6 piles of 2 packages - books and writing/drawing materials - we were dispatched by motorized dugout canoe at various points along the Amazon, popping up in remote villages and surprising a number of tiny schools with our humble offering.

The teachers and kids were surprised - and delighted - at their windfall from the "extranjeros."
Escuela Esperanza: 71 kids.

Interestingly, some officials from the local Dept Education happened to be on the boat doing their rounds of inspecting and testing teachers in remote schools. Apparently, students must attain a certain level of skill in certain subjects or the teacher gets shown the door (if there is a door) - according to Vioricka, our local Director of Operations.

3. Visiting the Jack Wolff and Joseph Pulley Schools

These two schools, built entirely from donations collected by PACTOUR, are located at kilometer 9 and 46 outside the northern jungle town of Iquitos. The Jack Wolff School, with almost 600 kids, prepared a grand welcome of placards, dances, poetry readings and food. Then the teachers got down to business to discuss their needs for the coming 2012 school year.

Touching messages everywhere you looked at the Jack Wolff School.

Lon listens to teachers articulating needs and desires - sporting uniforms, a powerpoint projector, laptops ...

The kids at the remote Joseph Pulley School. Many walk 1 hour from further inside the jungle to class each day,

The Joseph Pulley School is a hot, dusty, 4km hike into the jungle. It was named after the father of an avid PACTOUR cyclist., Brenda Pulley. The site consists of the school building, a hut for the teacher, a hut for the live chickens, a cooking stand and a river nearby. The teacher, Vioricka's mother, spends 5 days a week living in these spartan conditions, and returns the city of Iquitos on weekends. Many of the children walk 1 hour or more to the school from deeper in the jungle each day to attend class.

A hot 4km hot and sweaty hike in and out of the school. Douse your socks with repellent!

As remote as it was, the Jack Pulley school cooked everyone wonderful meal of duck confit, rice, pickled onions, plantain and slices of the sweetest pineapple.

4. Street kid parties

Like a "flash mob" event, we hosted two spontaneous meals at a local restaurant for kids who looked like they had nowhere to go home to. We handed out individually numbered invitations and asked them to show up at the restaurant at 6.30pm. A sign that Peru is become more affluent: some kids refused the invitation, and those who accepted looked fairly well looked after "which hasn't been the case in previous years," said Lon.

The little boy selling snacks took time off work to attend the party.

Not all the kids were particularly poor ... this fairly affluent girl (left) sticks by her less affluent friend.

I wondered if this benevolent gesture might be misinterpreted by onlookers, given that my mother always told us "not to accept pollo from strangers." My concerns were laid to rest by a local guide:
"Peruvians are accustomed to foreigners stopping buy and doing kind things," he said.

5. The Orphanage at Puerto Ocopa

The Orphanage is at the end of a spectacular and often treacherous 300+ mile route from Lima to Satipo over the 16,000 foot Ticlo pass.

It's come a long way since we first visited in 2004, when a single nun looked after 85 kids whose parents had been killed (apparently) by guerillas. At the time, all cooking was done over wood, each child had one set of clothes, which were washed by standing and soaping themselves in the river and rain - and there was no electricity.

Thanks to non-profits from France and Spain the center now has running well water, electricity, three fridge/freezers and even a TV room.

Gabriele Garcia, who lives year round at the Orphanage, runs the Children of Rio Tambor Foundation.
He's made the well operational so that the Orphanage now has running water.

The orphans received clothes, shoes and personal hygiene items as well as 3 month's supply of food.

6. Cycling

Our crew included Peruvian champion cyclists Alessandra and her younger sister Samantha. Read about their rise to fame here.

Christian of the many beautiful and charismatic kids we met in Peru.

Crayolacam 2.0: I used a SONY DSC-HX9V and a Canon S100 point and shoot cameras for this project.

Thanks so much to gun cameraman Johnnie Behiri, who I've met through his spectacular review of the SONY DSC-HX9V on Vimeo. He provided life-saving online help in mastering the impressive little camera which shoots 1080p/60fps - yet it's still just a point & shoot. I really need hi-def video but with one-handed operation (the other on the handlebars of a bicycle) and this really did the trick!

More pictures on my Facebook page here
Read about this tour

A DVD of this tour will be available Jan 2012 | Original DVD: 16,000 Feet on a Friday
Donations for these Peru Projects are administered by a charity and always welcome and appreciated - as you can see, they are put to good and immediate use!
To donate, contact Lon Haldeman, haldeman@pactour.com | Read Lon's Peru blog

Better harassing through science: the Cat Attack toy

2011-12-26T20:36:00.000-08:00

The Cat Attack: A little remote controlled mouse with skittish attachment keeps cats on their toes (shot on my iPhone, a bit of drumming by the Greenpoint Marching Band in Hudson, 2010)

Let's face it: it's generally more fun to watch a white elephant gift exchange than a traditional Christmas gift opening. Same ole, same ole, given and received with gracious grimaces - sox, books, TJ Maxx gloves, scarves (OK I was guilty of gifting a few from my recent Peru video shoot), tins of mass produced shortbread butter cookies ... oh wouldn't I kill to see someone gift a black velvet flocked painting to a serious art lover!

But this year, after teaching a Christmas Day yoga class, I was generously invited by a student to a wonderful gathering and saw a particularly fresh stocking stuffer:

It's called a CAT ATTACK: a remote-controlled toy with convincingly twitchy, skittish mousey moves. Three laser-pointer-blasé cats - a tuxedo, a tortoiseshell and a calico - were mesmerized by this gadget. Staring in disbelief, they stalked it from a few whisker-lengths distance, backing off and darting behind boxes when it swung around for a swipe.

Yes, as if twitching and nose-butting the cat wasn't enough, the gadget features a Chaos Wand - a neurotic pom-pom on a spring that's whacked around asynchronously like a fly swatter.

As you can see, the tortoiseshell eventually bit the pom-pom and stalled the action until it let go.

Best of all, it kept the only child in the room utterly transfixed (for a while) as she controlled the remote like an expert crane driver. Uh, except when she drove it over the rug fringe, where the spinning wheels sucked up the cords. It was like trying to unravel a reel of dental floss sucked up in a bicycle chain (not that the two would ever get that close.)

The unpredictable moves make the toy very interesting to watch, and apparently it's a product of applied chaos theory. It utilizes "algorithmns based on six-dimensional coupled nzmap system modeled on the neural network of a real mouse." I include the full and fascinating thesis at the bottom of this post.

OK, the fluffy booties were the second best stocking stuffer

How fun would it be to work for a company that makes this kind of thing! Applying your PhD in Robotics and bringing the prototype to the boardroom table for progress presentations ... I use to wonder what the boardroom meetings of adult toy industry would be like: Powerpoint presentations of penile enhancers, battery life charts of buzzing day-glow suppositories ... you get my drift. As we know, everything gets old, hence the relentless onslaught of new tchotchkes. Like this Tengu toy my beau discovered in MOMA, which I filmed lip-synching a classic Rowan Atkinson skit:

Read on for a holiday applied science fix - it's what happened when NASA met Kitty!

Cat Attack Remote Control Cat Exerciser

As much fun for people as for cats, the Cat Attack is the world's first remote control cat exercises featuring the Chaos Wand, based on chaos technology, to keep your cat wildly entertained for hours on end. You drive the Cat Attack and it drives your cat crazy! The Cat Attack uses the latest research in chaos theory and complex systems to emulate the movements and personality of a cat's favorite prey. This "virtual mouse" technology utilizes algorithmns based on six-dimensional coupled nzmap system modeled on the neural network of a real mouse. What that all means is that the Cat Attack's "virtual mouse" will become your cat's new best friend! This product is based on Capsuled Chaos TM technology by ChAotic Toy Factory, ltd. (from http://www.felinefanatics.com/cat_toys.htm)

Have a happy cat-harrassing 2012!

On the 12th of Xmas my true love gave to me...

2011-12-24T22:03:00.000-08:00

A Galfromdownunder Traffic Cone Bag in a pear tree! (More shots of this on my Traffic Cone Blog)

Avagoodone, as we say Downunder!

Thanks to artist Pamela Talese for taking these shots, and loaning me her silver Nutcase helmet.

2011-10-04T20:15:00.000-07:00

At Westville Cafe, NYC, Sep 2011

Ten Years After the Fact Dept: I was delighted to meet Aussie ESPN Sports commentator and all-round creative guy Thai Neave ( Thai Neave Photography) who brought his old, tattered Random House copy (circa 2003) of my book to brunch - and loaned me his GoPro helmet cam to try out in my upcoming Peru trip.

Apparently Thai was inspired to make his own trip to Cuba as a result of reading my book!

Here's Thai in action:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNlA7L_07Yo

Where I was, and wasn't - on 9-11. And you?

2011-09-11T08:21:00.000-07:00

Where I first landed: Bike Friday in Eugene, Oregon USA

I had just arrived in the USA, and was interning at Bike Friday, Eugene, Oregon.

Every morning at 8am was a sales meeting.

I was transitioning from being a nite owl in Central America to a morning person in the USA, and judging from the empty chairs around the sales manager's cubeless cube, I wasn't the only one.

Nonetheless, I managed to get to the shop by 7.58am, park my bike in the garage at 7.59am and wandered through the small break room where, unusually, the TV was on.

One of the new salesguys, Michael Kelly, was standing in front of it, staring.

"What are you watching?" I asked.

"World Trade Center," he said simply.

I saw the smoking towers on the old fuzzy box (even then, this was a clunky old telly with a bubble screen) but it didn't register. I thought it was a special effects movie and Michael was indulging in a bit of pre-work viewing. I mean, everyone in 'merica turns on the raucous box first thing and turns it off last thing at night, right?

I went into the salesroom and the sales manager was sitting in his chair, looking like he's been there a while. As we assembled, he laid it on the line.

"Now you all know the sales meeting starts at 8am sharp. There is never any reason to be late."

We looked at each other guiltily, and started the day.

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An evocative image from photographer Masayo Nishimura's show, Uptown Bound

"You mean you had no emotional attachment to it?"

Sepember 10, 2011. I've just popped by the photo exhibit entitled Uptown Bound by photographer Masayo Nishimura, whose work I own.

In the spring of 2000, Masayo was photographing inside the uptown stations of the New York subway using a medium format camera and a tripod when she was stopped by a policeman. At the time, Masayo was unaware of regulations prohibiting the use of tripods in stations. The images she captured in that brief 30 minutes are a lasting memoir of a time prior to that fateful day. During an exhibition of these very images in September 2001, 911 happened.

... the fifth day into the exhibition, on Tuesday September 11th in the late morning when I woke up, the twin towers of WTC had already disappeared from the Manhattan skyline. The world I lived in and loved for past fourteen years had suddenly disappeared. The gallery was located just a few blocks away from the WTC. The show had to be temporarily closed due to circumstances shutting off everything in Manhattan south of 14th street. Now those works have become a symbol for me of the innocence of New York City before 911 which I have loved so dearly since I moved here two decades ago. From Uptown Bound

It surprised her that I was not deeply affected by the tragedy at that time. I explained that I had just landed in Eugene, Oregon, had never visited New York in my 39 years on the planet, and the only buildings in NYC known to me were the Empire State and Chrysler tower - from pictures. Nor had I watched much television, let alone American TV, while living in the jungle and traveling in Central America and before, that, the UK on my bicycle for a number of years.

I must have seemed doubly out of touch, because recently I sent her an email asking if, while she was in Japan, she could bring me back a certain soy sauce bottle I'd spotted in there in 2009. The moment she got the email was the very moment the tsunami struck. With the time delay between Japan and the USA, the news had not yet arrived in my inbox.

Masayo's work is once again, exhibiting from Sep 8-16th, 2011 at Gallery 502a.

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My first ever visit to NYC was 2002:
riding the Bike Friday Twin Air tandem in the Five Boro Bike Tour with host Mike Schuyler.

Bike Friday was certainly affected by 911. When people stopped flying, they cancelled their orders for a travel bike that goes in an airline suitcase. I was asked to write a piece about it. It's now disappeared from the live website, but you read it here on Wayback Machine.

My very first visit to the Big Apple was not until a year later, 2002. I took the company's signature Twin Air tandem in its single suitcase to ride it. A Bike Friday couple, Mike and Christie Schuyler, very kindly put me up in their tiny Bleecker Street studio, on an aerobed that filled the living room. It is generous customers like this who enabled Bike Friday to stay viable throughout that difficult period.

Mike and I rode the Twin Air tandem in the tour. One evening, he took me for a very long walk and stopped at a fence covered with notes and thoughts seeking lost family and friends in 911.

Here's a photo gallery of that first visit.
Here's the story on Wayback Machine.

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The Isle of Mull, Scotland

Four years earlier, I was standing somewhere in Scotland - was it Stornaway on the Outer Hebrides? Was it the Isle of Mull? - calling up a friend in Australia from a phone box. Against the wall of a small magazine store, still yet to open for the day was a wire cage bearing the current headlines: New Recipes for Busy Mothers.

Something like that.

"Princess Diana died," he said the voice from Downunder.

"What? You're kidding me," I said, hearing one thing in one ear, while my eyes were registered something else. The time difference here, was a mere few hours.

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Scott Malcomson graces our bookclub with his presence.

A few weeks ago my book club, through a UN connection, were privileged to have the author of Generation's End, Scott Malcolmson join us. Only after reading this excellent book, did I finally get a cohesive view of the events surrounding and leading up to 911.

I intend to read it again.

Children's Education Foundation Vietnam: $150 goes a long way

2011-08-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

I've just made a donation to an unsung and extremely worthy cause: The Children's Education Foundation - Vietnam.

This tiny charity, run by the tireless Linda Hutchinson-Burn relies on a just a few donors who know about her tenacious, selfless work that strives to keep young Vietnamese girls from impoverished families in school - and thus out of the hands of traffickers.

I was invited to a low-key fund raising dinner Linda organized in Brooklyn. At the top of this post is the impromptu video I shot of her presentation. I urge you to watch it and learn of her amazing work.

It started out like this: while holidaying in Vietnam 10 years ago, Linda saw that the mothers of extremely poor families literally worked themselves to death. "She died of tiredness" is a common explanation for death. Illness and premature death mean children must abandon school to look after remaining family members - making them a target for traffickers.

"A child in school is far less likely to be trafficked," says Linda. "An educated female is less likely to be violated or abused, and less likely to be exploited."

She was moved to tackle the problem, but from its root cause - ill health. By raising the health of these people, she reasoned, kids could stay in school, and be safer from trafficker's hands. So this amazing woman left her comfortable life in Australia and spent three years in Vietnam, cooking Vietnamese meals to raise money to finally open a free clinic.

How poor are these people? Many live on $1 a day, and have to build shacks on the most polluted canals where no tax is charged - they simply cannot afford to live on land:

Others live under structures of bamboo and newspaper; a family of four might sleep under a plastic sheet tied to a fence, their bed a platform on boxes, barely clearing a torrent of rainwater in monsoon season.

Thanks to donors - of which there are just a few in the world - school desks, books, pencils and waterproof clothing are hand-carried across rivers, streams and through thick jungle in the most remote parts of the country to give these kids and their families a chance at a better life - an educated life.

"We put girls back in school who have been removed due to poverty," says Linda. "We want them to have choices. A girl with an education earns 18 times that of one without."

As for Linda - now there's an amazing woman. She subsists on little more than the humanity she helps, as her charity is set up so that she receives no salary or payment. She is assisted by a handful of dedicated people including her long-time friend and USA coordinator, Stephen Jackel.

It turns out that just $150 equips a child for 1 year of school, and approximately double that for a year of university. I doubt there could be a more satisfying use for your spare $150.

Please donate to CEF now. Of course are many, many worthy charities, and many that have the PR and resources to attract the kinds of donations that CEF can only dream about. Toiling away year round in a far-flung corner of of the poorest places in the world, Linda is quietly putting 110% of her life into helping these kids in the small way she can.

You just know that your donation of $150 - or whatever you can spare - will be put to immediate and urgent use, $150%.

Write a check now.

‘Children’s Education Foundation – Vietnam’

Post it to the USA Coordinator - Stephen Jackel

277 Broadway, Suite 1010, New York, NY 10007.

Please let Stephen know of the donation so he can you send a receipt: cef.vn.usa@gmail.com

And of course, check out the CEF Website

Governor's Island: a little piece of Manhattan where cars fear to tread

2011-07-17T17:27:00.000-07:00

Governor's Island - a little, flat Utopia off the bottom end of Manhattan

I'm slowly discovering New York's intriguing chunks of itself scattered close to the "mother ship," Manhattan.

There's Fire Island (holiday favorite of the gay community off the coast of Long Island), Roosevelt Island (an odd little strip of suburbia in the East River between Manhattan and Queens), Ryker's Island (the prison island), City Island (Bronx), Ellis Island (houses a museum), Liberty Island (on which stands the lady in the green dress) and just this weekend, I visited Governor's Island.

It could not be easier to get to this "ice cream cone shaped island" (check out the map below!) especially on a bike. Cruise down the west side bike path to where the Staten Island Ferry takes off, go a bit to the left, and there's a FREE ferry from South St to this little car-few nirvana.

From Wikipedia:

Governors Island, a 172 acre island in the heart of New York Harbor, is only 800 yards from Lower Manhattan, and even closer to Brooklyn. It is a world unto itself, unique and full of promise. For almost two centuries, Governors Island was a military base – home to the US Army and later the Coast Guard, and closed to the public.

800 yards! You could almost swim it. In 2003, it was largely turned into a park, and since then, several activities have sprung up on this low-key isle, #1 being to lazily bike around its perimeter, criss-cross the blob of ice cream, and just hang out picnicking on the grass.

The day I went - Saturday - some giant sculptures by Mark di Suvero, on loan from the Storm King Arts Center in upstate New York, littered the landscape. My first thought: how they got the sculptures there ... by container ship, surely? Or by a massive convoy of 16 wheelers?

Below, the Statue of Liberty waves back towards me as I prepare to devour my picnic lunch on Picnic Point:

The sculptures really stood out against the pancake-flat landscape - big backdrops of sky to set them off:

My friend Cat showed how pleasureable it is to ride in this almost car-free utopia. It's early days, enjoy the peace while you can ...

Figment is an annual exhibition of very inventive artworks each accompanied by a thought-provoking explanation. First up, a sculpture that lets kids be kids and adults be adults in close proximity - kids play in the kayaks and the adults loll below in hammocks:

Someone built a "children only" model of a semi-submerged jet fighter covered in astroturf. I'm really not keen on playful renditions of warmongering accoutrements, but since you can buy a plastic AK-47 in day-glo colors (I am assuming) then this is just par for the course:

One artist, Isabelle Garbani, was knitting up a storm using plastic bags made into yarn, and "dressing" nearby trees with her repurposed-bag "sweaters."

A bunch of drink bottle caps made for some clickety clackity fun when you pulled down on the cord; I think the food concessions should have had buckets to collect these caps near the trashcans:

"This one's not that interesting," said Cat of this table of wooden shapes and a sign inviting us to build. A few minutes into it and we're engrossed, creating our own tabletop mini-Manhattan and brusquely elbowing and kids out of the way who try to topple it.

Ah, to be a kid again!

There's even a New York Harbor School on the Island, where kids learn to read, write, dive and learn all about ocean ecology. The #1 aspiration of the students? To become a marine biologist ...

SOLD! FOR SALE: My Previous Princess Pink Speeding tikit

2011-05-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Sold, 6/28/11, to Janine who says:
I love riding road so needed a more speeding type of tikit it's 24 miles to work and I work around 13 hrs a day so take the bus and train both besides the bus as I live rurally.

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Alan Scholz, CEO of Bike Friday zips
along on Cycle Oregon 2003 - on an
Air Friday with me trying to chase!

I have a new Bike Friday Speeding tikit. Thank you to Rob, Alan, Hanna and the Production team at Bike Friday for speccing out such a spiffy machine, and especially Merle and Bethany for the cute note on the box when it arrived at bfold!

My princess pink Model T Speeding tikit is for sale.

Hence, my previous one, about 18 months old, is spruced up and for sale to someone smallish with a penchant for pink (dusty rose, my friend Cheryl calls it) and a fast commuter folder. New, this bike retails for around $2300. David Lam at bfold.com is selling it - completely overhauled - for $1600.

Me with the Speeding tikit in Boston - now for sale in Manhattan.

The Speeding tikit is the bike to own if you want the elusive combo of ...

a) a bike you can commute with, and take inside and

b) a bike you can take on a slightly longer, weekend ride, say 30-40 miles, and still have it perform decently and comfortably.

This would be the ideal steed for someone who has room for only 1 bike - say, a studio dweller in Manhattan. Or a couple with cats and dogs and stuff filling every corner. Or kids! Who also likes pink.

The Speeding tikit folded. Shown with folding commuter pedals.

What makes this a folder fast? It's set up like a road bike, with 53/39 chainrings, bar end shifters, and a 9-26 rear cassette. This gives a fairly decent gear inch range of 24" to 94" - if you understand gear inches. The rear hub itself is a a bit of a jewel - a high-end alternative to Shimano's moderate-end Capreo hub for small wheeled bikes. The hub is made exclusively for Bike Friday somewhere Over There.

The bike weighs around 23lbs I believe. Commuter folders aren't super light by definition - the folding mechanism does weigh something. But oh, the convenience. I have never been refused entry to any building in Manhattan with this bike, except for the New York Public Library which bars any kind of bike, not matter how well disguised. OK, and Price Waterhouse Cooper. The tikit wears Prada!

Speaking of folding, this bike comes with what is called a Model T fold - there's a single big twiddly knob just above the Chris King headset that you finger tighten to lock it all together:

The Model T "twiddly knob" - one step fold/unfold

Here's a video of when I first took delivery of this bike - on my way to Jennifer Benepe's Hot Velociti event!

SPECIFICATION

For gear freaks, here is the specification for this bike:

Some more pics of the tikit in action:

Manhattan Moonlight ride

Bahamas

In the Bahamas with fellow Bike Friday owner Hilge

More about the Speeding tikit:

ITS PEDIGREE: Co-designed and built by HPV champ Rob English, British Hour Record holder and 7th fastest cat in the world. Rob's Speeding tikit

VIDEO: Walter at Bike Friday demonstrates how to operate the Model T fold, available on all tikit models, and on the tikit I am selling. Watch video

Unfortunately a lot of the stories and videos about this bike and indeed, Bike Friday, are currently unlinked on the brand new BF site, but there is plenty of material about the tikit on YouTube.

MY NEW SPEEDING TIKIT

It's not much different from the previous one - other than being all pink, geared slightly higher, and with the hyperfold mechanism. My touring Bike Friday mysteriously disappeared from its hook in the factory, and this is a partial replacement for that bike.

My new Speeding tikit isn't that much different from the previous one - shown here on the NYCC perimeter ride, 23 May, 2011.

Burn carbs not hydrocarbs!

Lou Reed rides a folder!

2011-04-26T19:09:00.000-07:00

Laurie Anderson with her Explorer's Club certificate of appreciation, while hubby Lou Reed looks windswept and interesting.

The Explorer's Club is busting out of its extreme snowshoe and crampon mold.

Traditionally an oak-clad clubhouse hung with the accoutrements of distinguished adventure (dug out canoes, sleds and snowshoes worn by Someone Pretty Durn Extreme) it's where scholarly thrillseekers rub ice picks under the watchful eye of one giant, stuffed, gnashing polar bear. Last night's event, however, was a surprising detour from summit-talk and diving bell banter: a discourse between famous avante-garde composer Laurie Anderson and experimental muso and "philosopher-naturalist" David Rothenburg. And what's this ... DJ Snoopy slated for an upcoming talk on the calendar? Rock on Hillary!

The association between the artists and the Explorer's Club is not as tenuous as might think: both artists have been exploring the aural frontier for their entire careers, including recording whalesongs and birdsongs (Rothenburg) and in Laurie's case, inventing a tecchy "talking stick", and creating a concert especially for dogs ("thousands of dogs") on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. She's also the very first artist in residence for NASA - you can't beat that for creds.

I confess (like the capacity audience probably wouldn't) that I went along on the nostalgia of her seminal album, "Big Science." Since my copy is locked away in some dusty box downunder, I was hoping she'd have a few on hand to sell and autograph - admittedly a puerile notion. She's done so many things since then, she must at times feel the frustration of Christo and the late Jean-Claude who seem inextricably associated to wrapping things when they've made a s-load of "unpackaged goods" since.

The audience consisted of the usual, "distinguished" Explorer's crowd plus a number of electronic music students, eager to pick up some static from the two "gurus of gauss".

Lou Reed rides a folding bike - a Brompton from bfold.com

I was a little disappointed that aside from some recorded whale noises bookending the 1 hour talk, there was no music or examples to listen to, as I have yet to acquaint myself with Rothenburg's work. When I pedaled around the globe giving talks as a "crayolacam" filmmaker I made sure to play some film - in fact, it got me off the hook: the more I played, the more I could get away with saying less. I believe that in the spirit of "the more you say, the less people hear," this is a good thing.

In the restroom line for the one women's loo, I asked other women why they came, and the phrase "Big Science" were uttered all around - even by Rothenburg's mother.

As I was unfolding my Bike Friday tikit to leave, someone mentioned that Anderson's hubby Lou Reed was up there. LOU REED?!!? I re-folded my bike and raced back upstairs. Yup, there he was, was sitting off to one side as his wife was thronged by adoring Explorers.

Lou Reed rides a folding bike. He bought it from a good friend of mine, David Lam, who owns the tiny, below-the-stoop East Village folding bike shop, www.bfold.com. Ah, what an icebreaker riding a folder is - way better than "Hey man, Walk on the Wild side was WICKED."

Reed revealed that he bought a Brompton, initially the one with titanium bits and two speeds, but opted later for the regular 6 speed model. (Lam says he actually had the fancy ti one upgraded to add gears).

"You need the speeds 'round here," he said gruffly. He noted my Bike Friday tikit.

"That a competitor?"

"They're for different things," I said diplomatically. "I rode across Cuba on a Bike Friday."

On noting from my card that I teach yoga, he said "I want to introduce you to someone," and summoned his wife over from the throng. For no other reason than it's an article I've been repeating to as many people as I can, I started telling him about the 82-year young woman I read about in Yoga Journal who started doing yoga at 65 because she "looked around at her friends and said, I have two choices: do yoga or become a decrepit little old lady..."

Anderson graciously extracted herself and I committed the crime I said I'd never do - I started blubbering about Big Science.

"Ah, geez, that was so long ago," said the diminutive La Laurie, shrugging her shoulders.

I slipped away before they registered my presence further and sped south into the balmy early spring Manhattan night on my folding bike.

Thanks so much to the patient young Explorer who obliged by taking our photos!

Moving my Yoga postings to a separate blog

2011-04-25T04:44:00.000-07:00

As of today I'm moving all my yoga posts to a separate blog.

You can get to it any time from my Galfromdownunder Yoga page or all blogs page.

One of the best things in city life that are free: art

2011-04-10T03:02:00.000-07:00

"Where's Steve?" Fran Lebowitz channeling the famous Steve Haring

I've been attending a lot of art shows of late. It's a way to feed the right side of the brain (for most of us, the left lobe gets hammered daily, right? ). Read about iton my ChelseaGallerista blog.

Snow York City!

2011-03-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: This footage was taken on 3 Feb 2011. A month later, it's started snowing again! So I'm being utterly opportunistic + lazy and re-dating this post to 23 March 2011. Enjoy brrrr!

Especially for my Aussie and Hawaii pals downunder who are surfing in 70 degree weather. Greets from a slushy corner nowhere near you in Gumboot Central, New York City!

The intersection of 8th Ave and 23rd St: a confluence of two lakes!

This guy got completely stranded. Bye bye Armani shoes

Slush makes the depth not easy to gauge - this was obviously calf-deep!

It's a beautiful thing unless you have to ride it

A winter wonderland brightens up the housing projects on 24th

This guy was a mystery for ages - as you pass him he seems to turn towards you

... its a trick - he's "dished" creating the illusion.

More views along 24th St

This ExtraCycle had Extra coldies to cart and we're not talking beer!

Yoga/Pilates for Cyclists: coming to an Otello room near you!

2011-01-25T19:30:00.000-08:00

NOTE: This post, and future posts relating to the Yoga/Pilates for Cyclists project in collaboration with Karin Fantus will now be continued on this blog: http://yogapilatesnyc.blogspot.com

Following our sold-out Yoga/Pilates for Cyclists Sampler class in Jan 2011, Karin and I have found a cozy space to continue the series. Judging by the feedback the New York Cycle Clubbers found our class very interesting and beneficial. (OK, we did hand out 85% dark chocolate with the anonymous feedback sheets). Here's a movie tour of the space:

Tour around the space above - and apologies - I couldn't help but tickle the ivories a little, despite a traumatic childhood involving piano lessons and a book of mindless Czerny Etudes that resulted in teethmarks on the piano ...

A musical space indeed: a 72nd St location - with cushy new carpet - for around 8-10 participants
(when we stack the chairs)

"What a tangled web we weave ... "

It's called the Otello room, normally used as a recital and practice space by musicians and opera singers. Signed photos of famous warblers, and even a signed score, decorate the walls. In a corner, a small baby grand sets off the space but doesn't intrude too much into it.

The location is right above the 72 St subway on Broadway. Very central and convenient (Trader Joes right opposite), freshly painted with a cushy new carpet.

The view towards Broadway - and signed photos of famous opera singers on the wall.

There's a nook for students to store mats and pilates rollers to save schlepping. Alternatively, we can provide some that you can rent. The available times we have for this space are ...

Monday nights, 6:30-8:30pm
Saturdays at 3:00-5:00pm

We will need to ask interested participants what works best for your schedule - bearing in mind the NYCC begins its SIG series in March. Perhaps Saturdays while it's a little too cold to ride, then Monday nights as the weather warms up and SIG season starts? Or perhaps Mondays are perfect - the party end of the week is still 5 days away.

Aaaaah, using the foam roller (pilates/MELT technique). Once you've tried it, you gotta have one.
More pictures on my GalfromdownunderYoga Facebook page

We hope to commence classes very soon - starting early February. The charge will be $20 per 90 minute class, allowing an extra half hour for a bit of socializing and unwinding. We can always go grab a snack after if and when the mood suits.

Feedback welcome in the comment field below. THANKS!

Karin and Lynette.

Very useful feedback from participants. See more.

Handmade Bikes: The Buyer, The Builder, the Bling (Movie and Story)

2010-12-31T20:44:00.001-08:00

CLICK on above image to watch video.

THE MOVIE (15 mins):

http://www.galfromdownunder.com/movies/handmadebikes

On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=491446521589

Shot with Galfromdownunder CrayolaCam
(8 mp point & shoot camera, iMovie, no really)

THE STORY in MOMENTUM MAGAZINE (Jan/Feb 2011, begins page 29):
http://momentumplanet.com/magazine specifically:

http://momentum-digitalmag.com/JanFeb2011

Thanks to Babbling Brook Productions for this very nice comment on YouTube:

This is a great video that really captures the experience of appreciating handmade bicycles. From describing the artistic details of handmade bikes such as the head tube badge, lug work and paint, to the experience of having a bike built for a specific riding purpose, this tells the story. The time spent with the builders in their shop really lets you in to the work of hand building bike frames. If you're interested in hand built bikes, this video nails it!!!

TO ACCOMPANY a piece called "Handmade Bikes" for Momentum Magazine (Jan 2011, starts page 29) I shot a 15 minute, hopefully informative video featuring two New York Cycle Club riders, two Brooklyn framebuilders, and lots and lotsa fancy lugs.

It all started when cycling promoter and PR pro Paul Skilbeck (Gran Fondo, CA) contacted me and asked if I wanted to do an article about the subject for Momentum Magazine. Paul is is the PR guy for The National Handmade Bike Show (NAHBS) and amazingly, a former classmate from waaaay back in my Kambah High School days (Canberra, Australia). Of course I have Facebook and Lee Henkel to thank for that!

Paul Skilbeck with his two highly regarded books, Single Track Mind and Mountain Biking,

It was an assignment with a modest honorarium, but I can never resist a glittering opportunity to shoot a Gal crayolacam movie - the requirements being interesting topic and interesting people. Actually, it can be as dull as as Walmart knife but I'll do my darndest to make it un-so. How about this for example.

So where to turn? The New York Cycle Club message board seemed the obvious choice. Wealthy Type A folks living in New York - bound to have a few handmade gems hanging in their closets or garages in the Hamptons. Posting a message led to a flood of handmade bike lovers and dreamers, one of them engineer and pediatric radiologist Paul Lui with his Brian Baylis Randonneur:

Paul Lui, handmade bike aficionado with his Brian Baylis Randonneur

This bike has all the creds: a traditional steel frame and beautiful lugwork and paint - the traditional reason why people spring for a handmade bike. A look at those luscious lugs:

Paul Lui and his beloved Brian Baylis handmade bicycle

Lui and I spent an enjoyable afternoon in his upper west side apartment cruising the dazzling work of several builders on the internet, including the jeweled and ornate work of John Columbine Cycles. "My first choice," said Lui, "but I eventually settled on Brian Baylis - I fell in love with a bike of his that I saw in Bicycle Magazine." Plus, Baylis offered him the right combo of price, input, choices - not all builders offer all things to all people. In 1996 his frame and fork cost $2000, and the complete bike was approximately twice that - $4000.

At a different part of the spectrum was NYCC (New York Cycle Club) member Peter Storey, who bought his UK-made Chas Roberts frame "purely for fit reasons":

Peter Storey and his "strictly functional with a bit of bling" Chas Roberts (UK) Custom Audax

Peter's bike is fillet-brazed rather than Paul's, meaning no fancy lugwork. It still has little details as my video reveals, and most importantly, fits his "6'3", "woman's geometry" body due to his long legs and comparatively shorter torso "that doesn't bend very much". At the time, 2004, the frame and fork cost around $1200, the complete bike $2400, illustrating the large cost difference between lugs and fillet brazed frames (Lui's bike cost $4000 ten years earlier).

Then it was time to interview a framebuilder. I had some long talks and email exchanges with framebuilers Richard Sachs, Peter Weigle, Brian Bayliss and Sam Whittingham, as well as NAHBS founder Don Walker and touring bike specialist Bruce Gordon, but it was the NYCC's Alfredo Garcia and John Feinberg who pointed me to a newer framebuilder, Johnny Coast of Coast Cycles in Brooklyn. So instead of making a considerable expedition to the idyllic hinterlands of Massachusetts to visit Weigle and Sachs against a copy deadline, I was able to hop the subway and catch Johnny in action. I scored an unexpected coup - Johnny shares his space with fellow framebuilder Seth Rosko, who specializes in handmade TIG welded frames, the more standard type of bicycle frame construction you see today.

Framebuilders Seth Rosko (left) and Johnny Coast (right), both graduates

of the United Bicycle Institute in Oregon share a workshop in Brooklyn

Two builders for the price of one! My little video was shaping up to be a 360-degree survey.

Coast and Rosko are both graduates of the UBI - United Bicycle Institute in Oregon. Coast learned to TIG weld "at the earliest legal age" we joked - 12 years old - taught by his father, renowned hot rod car builder Rick Coast. Coast has the Richard Sachs nod of approval, and showed me his work made from classic components he's collected or that have been re-issued, due to "a big resurgence of restoring old frames." He also trained at the tiny school of legendary "3 Rensho" builder Koichi Yamaguchi in Rifle Colorado.

Johnny Coast, displaying a finished classic a "half lug" and a big, old, brass bell.

Rosko specializes in mountain, road and dirt bikes, and also vintage motorcycle racing and restoration. He built "thousands" of production frames and seems quietly thrilled at the chance to do his own thing. The two lads hum around their modest shop in a cul-de-sac, keeping each other warm in the dead of winter with frequent trips to the little coffee shop on the pointy part of the block.

Seth Rosko, who specializes in TIG welding

There is a third area I did not cover, and that is the many, many framebuilders who build stuff that falls in between and beyond: bamboo bikes by Calfee, Transportation bikes like Mike Flanigan at ANT, Tandems like Bilenky's famous Viewpoint, and so on. Read the Momentum Magazine article for a few more (see link at top of this post).

And, there's of course Jim Langley's point about many people digging up old Fuji, Miyata and Raleigh frames and repurposing them - isn't that a handmade bike too?. Paul Lui has the last word on this:

"What ... a Fuji ... you're killing me!"

HANDMADE BIKES REPRISE: Jim Nachlin and his "Mini Velo": another NYCC rider and grad of the UBI shows off his latest production:

Headbadge love: Peter Story and his Chas Roberts handmade bike

Johnny Coast silver brazing a steel frame

Johnny Coast, the lug man, and Seth Rosko, the TIG man

New York Cycle Club's James Nachlin also popped by to show me his "mini velo"
- he's also a graduate of the UBI. MOVIE: James and his Mini Velo

Permalink to this blog post: http://www.galfromdownunder.com/handmadebikes

www.galfromdownunder.com/movies/handmadebikes

Downward Dog Days: Yoga/Pilates for Cyclists Sampler Workshop

2010-12-30T06:14:00.000-08:00

Caught mid Warrior II on Arizona Desert Camp 2010, where I taught a
daily Yoga for Cyclists class. See a shot clip.

By cyclists, for cyclists ... I'm going to be doing a workshop in January in collaboration with Pilates teacher and cyclist Karin Fantus. For the yogaphobic and pilates-curious, it's a little back-to-back intro for newbies that demonstrates flexibility techniques (yoga), resistence techniques (pilates) and core strength (both).

Karin Fantus with a client in her pilates studio

Details below. It's sponsored by the New York Cycle Club, which is always coming up with fun and interesting ideas for its members - the last one was a group visit to the Bespoke Handmade Bicycles Show at MAD.

You can sign up on my Facebook Event page, which will simply help organize responses and let you post questions and comments

... or, if you can't access that for some reason, there's a PayPal button at the end of the blurb below ...

NYCC January Special Event Two Mondays: January 10 & 17, 2011. 6:30-8:30pm
[limited space available]

Location: The Breathing Project, Inc. 15 W. 26th Street (between 5th/6th) 10th floor New York, NY 100 NYCC presents: Stretch it. Flex it. Bend it. Feel stronger.

What’s your plan for staying strong and flexible in the off season? NYCC is sponsoring a special Sampler Session of YOGA+PILATES for cyclists, by cyclists.

Sixty-something Colin Freestone demonstrates a
great shoulder opener for we hunched-over cyclists
More about Colin:
http://bikefriday.com/colinfreestone/yoga

This is an opportunity to experience two of the most popular and beneficial fitness methods for cyclists in one easy, introductory session: Vinyasa yoga, and Pilates 45 mins each. Taught by two certified instructors and NYCC members Absolute beginners encouraged! Learn some useful techniques to greatly improve your cycling, and hopefully you'll want to make it a regular part of your fitness program:

Become aware of the breath and its importance to centeredness on the bike, beyond gulping and wheezing as you try to keep up with the pack
Develop core stability to stay upright when riding through potholes, and if someone crosses your wheel
Become way more flexible to both "counter the crunch" of hunching over your bars, and get more "aero" = go faster!
Know how it feels to NOT HURT on and off the bike and how to keep it that way, with some quick home-exercises, and exercises you can do on the bike.

Dates: Two Monday sessions: January 10, January 17. You're encouraged to take both – the second session will be a progression and include new material

Time: 6.30pm – 8.30pm – be on time!

What you’ll need to bring - Loose clothing, A small towel, water

Cost:
$30 for both sessions, $20 single session - available if space allows. Limited to 10 participants to ensure individual attention.

The Instructors

KARIN FANTUS - PILATES INSTRUCTOR:

Karin teaches how to become stronger and more flexible as we age. Clients come to her with joint issues (ankle/knee/hip/shoulder/back/neck, etc.), which get better as she teaches them how to use their bodies better.

Karin's done PILATES for about 20 years, and been teaching since 2002. She runs a her own, fully-equipped PILATES studio, and teaches at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. Once-upon-a-time, Karin was a TV news producer for the major networks and nationally-syndicated shows.

Karin is one of the few Pilates instructors also certified to teach M.E.L.T. (Myofascial Energetic Length Technique). It's a self-help treatment, to release deep-rooted tension throughout the body.

For more years than she cares to mention, Karin's been an avid road cyclist, riding ultra-distance events (Paris-Brest-Paris 1991 & 1999), and crewing for them (Race Across America 1987 & 2003). After 150,000+ miles of cycling, she attributes her healthy knees, back and hips to PILATES. Karin on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/karin-fantus/11/365/562

LYNETTE CHIANG (aka Galfromdownunder) - YOGA INSTRUCTOR:
Lynette is a certified Vinyasa yoga teacher and has practiced yoga, ballet and meditation for 20 years. While being a "more fun than fast" cyclist, she believes yoga has helped her stick on the wheels of clients "Coach" Fred Matheny and RAAM/PAC Tour legend Lon Haldeman. Her most recent wheel-sticking feat being 22 mp/h for 10 miles - on a 16-inch wheel bike.

She toured the world solo and self-supported for five years, authored a New York Times reviewed book, "The Handsomest Man in Cuba : a bicycle escapade", created bicycle adventure films about Route66 and Peru, and was the Customer Evangelist for Bike Friday for 9 years where she taught Yoga for Cyclists at PACTOUR's annual training camp.

Currently she teaches yoga to private clients, as well as at Chelsea Recreation Center and the Hudson Guild Community Center, where she hosted an inspiring presentation by NYCC / 5BBC "super seniors": http://bit.ly/superseniorcyclists
Lynette's Yoga Webpage: http://www.galfromdownunder.com/yoga
On Facebook: http://facebook.com/galfromdownunderyoga
Questions? E-mail LYNETTE CHIANG galfromdownunder@gmail.com or KARIN FANTUS bikek@nyc.rr.com

NYCC will provide some lite bites at the end of the program So join your friends, bring some of you own and make some new ones at The Breathing Project, Inc. for YOGA+PILATES

We’ll have fun. We always do. Hal Eskenazi, NYCC Director of Special Events events@nycc.org

SIGN UP FOR THIS WORKSHOP

1. We would love you do it via th Facebook Event Page: http://www.tinyurl.com/yogapilatesnycc

*but* if you're Facebook-phobic ...

2. Sign up with PayPal here (it's perfectly safe, I use this button all the time):

Macy's Santaland: Many Santas Make Light Work

2010-12-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

‎*** WARNNG: Parental Guidance Alert! Santa Spoiler! ***
Visiting the Macy's Santaland on the top floor of this iconic NYC retailer in 2009, with Bike Friday customer Brenda Carlton. When I was a kid, there was just one Santa, needless to say, me and my nosy camera were hustled out of there ever so nicely by the tireless, velvet suited elves - they deserve a great Christmas tip! Merry Christmas everyone!

Santa's Elf 1: beats folding t-shirts!

Santa's Elf 2: tip this man!

Scenes from Macy's Miracle on 34th St puppet show.

Bear Crossing!

My advertising bent: putting the Macy's branding front and center

The final scene from Miracle on 34th St

Everyone gets this cute little badge

Gal Travel Stories: Doing the Dishes in County Kerry Part II

2010-12-24T20:17:00.000-08:00

Assembling the Dessert Taster plate, a heptathlon feat for a trainee chef.
"You should be able to turn that around in under 2 minutes," said sous chef Tommy.

My life as a trainee chef
Ireland 1998

After my three-week waitressing career sank like a lead meringue I found myself out in the drizzling rain looking for a new job, and more pressingly, a new place to sleep. Kenmare suddenly took on a grey, miserable pallor, a trick of the brain when life takes an awkward turn.

Bummer.

I was still frazzled by being fired, though it wasn't the first time in my life. I argued that really, I never wanted to be a waitress; it was just a way to possibly get into the kitchen to do what I really wanted to do: learn to cook.

I woke at 6am after a fitful night digesting my last supper, which I had brazenly chosen to take place at my former place of employment the same day I was fired. I chose the hand rolled tortellini in a tomato olive sauce followed by a perfectly executed lemon tart - neither too sweet or too sour, with a light, feathery creaminess not unlike an expensive beauty cream that comes in a fancy frosted jar. Sadly but not surprisingly, the meal did not sit well in my stomach.

So first things first: a new job. I went from door to door asking for a chance to work in the kitchen. I do believe the openness and directness of Aussies makes them quite lousy bullshitters, so I opted for the honesty approach, explaining that though I had no qualifications or experience, my all-consuming passion for the preparation and execution of fine food would make me an asset to their business. The responses were predictably cool; the Irish are masters of indirectness and beating about the bush so the cultural combination between Me and Them was like chilled lard and iced water.

Looking every bit the washer upper in a Chinese chop house - it's a great leveler, this cooking gig ...

The Square Pint pub sported a self-consciously hip upstairs eaterie called Café Indigo, complete with curvy chrome and glass and dark blue effects, plus artsy duotone shots of young girls in various states of fully clothedness (remember this is Ireland) and a menu designed for nibbling and being seen rather than being seen to nibble. The starched sous chef informed me that there may be a place coming up in the glass polishing department.

Darcey's, the only restaurant in town with a provisional Michelin Star was closed when I visited, but I was told that unless you'd done the hard yards at catering school you would not even make it past the 'Please Wait to Be Seated' sign.

Trudge, trudge.

The spry owner of the Purple Heather, a place for excellent soup and sandwich regarded me through her square spectacles.

"You should try Bruce across the road…he does oriental food". (For the uninitiated reader, I have a Chinese face).

Bruce was an anomoly in the staid environs of Kenmare. At 23, he'd stirred up a reputation for inventive fusion food in his restaurant and namesake, Mulcahy's Restaurant and Bar. Bruce exuded big city ambition, had travelled to far flung places like Australia, Japan, France and the States where he'd devoured the local culinary culture and returned, determined to break the moldy old mold, brazenly combining a little bit of here with a little bit of there, yet interestingly, retaining something of the flavour of Ireland. Conversely, his Irish classics were presented with an avante-garde twist, like his rich Irish Stew served on the centre of the plate with four small boiled potatoes at each compass point.

I went across to Mulcahy's all ready to confess that my handle on Oriental food was as good as my steam calliope tuning prowess, but it wasn't an issue. The issue was that he had a full quota of kitchen staff, a sous (second) chef, and a very, very small kitchen. I looked him straight in the eye and told him I would work three days a week for free and get a job elsewhere in the town for money, and that I would be an asset to his business as long as he taught me everything he knew. He said to me, "I'll give you a full time job".

Thus by 11.30am I had the promise of a full-time traineeship at Mulcahy's Restaurant and Bar for an as yet undisclosed paltry sum, and by 2pm, after scribbling down a phone number displayed in the post office window, I'd paid a deposit on a new place to sleep, sharing a cottage with a couple for 30 quid a week.

Anna, a friend who lived outside of town, helped me move a few things to my new abode with her car. We folded my bicycle, put it in the trunk, and drove to her house to spend the night there. Her house is a delightfully higgelty-piggelty cottage perched on the side of a mountain, 15 miles outside Kenmare in a place called Lauragh on the Beara Peninsula. The garden is a riot of raspberry, redcurrant and blackcurrent bushes interspersed by free-spirited potato plants, herbs, flowers and other vegetables. The cottage is daubed white and the windows painted a cheery yellow. The living area is alive with plants and the accoutrement of active minds, young and not so young - cassette tapes, books, files bursting with clippings, framed photographs and small toys neatly compartmentalised into yoghurt containers by Ciaron, her exuberant 6 year old boy. A ladder leads to a sunlit loft housing Anna's bed and Ciaron's nook. I sat in a chair feeling drained.

"You've had a big shock" she comforted, referring to the events of the last two days.

I helped her cook a Hari-Krishna style curry with home grown vegetables, boosted by a generous dollop of Pataks Ginger Pickle, which I had ferried all the way from Dublin. It was comforting, and a little odd, to feel completely safe. I slept long and deep for the first time since arriving in Kenmare just on a month and a half ago.

I woke at 11am to the sound of Ciaron's piping voice in the loft upstairs, and went into the kitchen to make fresh raspberry pancakes for brunch. After a few games of Mastermind with Ciaron we mounted Anna's and Ciaron's bikes on the back of the car and drove down the dirt road past Glanmore Lake. Ciaron and I spent a very pleasant afternoon riding back along the dirt track whilst Anna drove on ahead to meet us. She dropped me off at the Tuosist turnoff and I rode back to Kenmare. The 16 kilometers took a mere 45 minutes, a flat, fast road.

Kenmare is a small town. It seemed that everyone knew of my dismissal and were divided into two camps - those that ignored me and whispered behind my back, and those that were openly consoling. One of the latter camp was Phillipe, a well-heeled, 18 year old adopted Chinese Irish lad who waitered in the Bean and Leaf internet café. At half my age but more than fifty times my wealth he insisted on treating me to blini's (small pancakes) in Café Indigo. This time I did not decline.

Sunday. My last day of freedom before commencing my self-inflicted of culinary slavery at Mulcahy's. Today I managed to muscle in on an exclusive Kenmare Walking Club jaunt to Rabach's Cave, back down the road on the Beara Peninsula near Anna's place. I called up the local primary school principal and club stalwart Donal O'Sullivan to arrange a lift to the striding-off point. The walk turned out to be a pleasant if boggy two hour ramble into a capacious valley. Denise, supermum, brought her four young ones including a six-week old babe-in-sling. She'd never missed a hike, apparently. Rabach was a family of particularly tough and tetchy folk who lived in the now derelict stone cottages in the valley. As the story goes, someone saw Rabach kill a member of the group, forcing him to hide in a cave in the hillside to watch out for the gardai (police). Each of us in turn scrambled up the rocky and fern covered approach to the narrow black hole, the entrance to the cave. Each of us then squeezed through to the other side, except Donal, who declined for reasons of claustrophobia.

Monday. My first day behind the scenes at Mulcahy's Restaurant and Bar. I spent most of it standing in a corner of the tiny, frantic kitchen, watching mini towers of chicken, beef, fish and salad leaves being constructed at lightning speed then whisked out the swinging door. I saw fillets of lamb wrapped in pastry and artfully balanced on a bed of caramelised onion, nori-wrapped salmon oven roasted to perfection stuffed cod in a golden crust, crab patties with big chunks of real crustacean and a botanist's salad of crisp organic lettuce (three kinds) punctuated with exotic edible flora such as nasturtiums, borage and lavender. Bruce and his Australian girlfriend Ros had been to all the foodie traps in Sydney and it showed.

Bruce even got me a white chef's coat and cap so I really looked the part. So eager was I to get my hands into the flour and fish fillets I agreed to make the daily eight loaves of house baked bread after just one day of observation. I went beserk and added sundried tomatoes, olive paste and herbs to the basic mixture. Unlike the resentment I experienced in my failed waitressing stint, my overenthusiasm was patiently welcomed by ever-striving Bruce, who simply pointed out where I was going wrong and basically left me to experiment, within reason.

Lemon Tart: 5 lemons, zest of 2, juice of all. Somehow I read this as juice of 7 lemons, which explained the watery lake when I sliced into my first lemon tart. Bruce had mysteriously disappeared on this night, leaving Tommy the sous chef and me, the commis chef, to comandeer the gravy train. Fortunately it turned out to be a slowish night but it was busy enough for me, especially when an order for a 'taster plate' came in. This after-dinner extravaganza could well have been titled 'Death by Dessert', consisting of a miniature slice each of lemon tart, strawberry cheesecake, apricot cheesecake, a scoop of house-made ice-cream sitting in a tuille or sugar cup and a portion of chocolate fondant criss-crossed by white and dark chocolate sauce, all laid out on a longish oblong plate and dusted with ground pistachio nuts and icing sugar. An order for this buffet of sugar and fat made me break out in a cold sweat; no matter how I cut the slices they would wobble and break, and the ice cream would start to melt whilst the fondant was being zapped in the microwave. Actually, the logistics of this dessert seriously needed reviewing, because it meant running like a headless chicken between the freezer in the outside prep room to the fridge to the microwave and back again.

"Ye should be able to turn 'round a taster in two minutes," said Tommy, dragging on his cigarette in the courtyard between orders. So somehow I had to slice three minutes off my best time, without throwing a wobbly.

My new little abode was a tiny upstairs room in a little cottage, sharing with Joanne and her hubby Kary. They were an odd couple; she a serious, cigarette-sucking and beer-drinking Irish country girl, he a gregarious, cigarette-sucking and beer-drinking Indian from Sri Lanka and a veteran of two civil wars in his home country. When I arrived home on this particular night Kary appeared in his dressing gown for a Harp (beer) and some craic (banter). He'd spent 18 months in the Indian Army at the front, pushing the Kashmiri border a couple of hundred feet back and forth. He tales of bullets whistling past his ears whilst he and his comrades chuckled over copies of old newspapers in the trenches, dragging pieces of his former best mate back into his hole and several miraculous escapes from guaranteed death left me wide-eared until 3am, and then fitfully dreaming about smiling, Harp-swilling people being blown to bits until my alarm rang at midday.

"Tell you something", he said suddenly, and I knew I was going to be privy to yet another insight. "I knew all about you even before you moved in".

He went on to explain how someone 'who would remain nameless' expressed alarm at the prospect of me moving in to their friend's abode.

"She's useless, she got fired from Con and Katherine's, and besides, she's weird."

It was at that moment that I got a sense of what is is to be a newcomer in a small town, with its inherent fear and loathing of anyone deemed to be left or right of dead centre. Strangely, this cheered me. To be an outsider, to not be accepted, to not 'fit in' is, for me, simply part of the experience. The experience of being a new, little fish in a new, even littler pond.

Generously, Bruce allowed me three consecutive days off to revisit a friend in Cahirsiveen, some 50 miles away on the farthernmost coast of the Ring of Kerry. Eddie was a birdwatcher I'd met several months ago whilst cycling from Tralee to Cork. For the first time in my life I was actually returning to visit a place I had passed through. This told me my life must be slowing down ever so slightly. Ros's sister gave me and my bicycle a lift as far as Caherdaniel, a spectacular spot 30 miles from Kenmare. Thus I had a chance to re-trace my tire tracks around this famous scenic drive.

On the way I popped into Peter's Place in Waterville, where I had languished for five delightful days last November in the company of a traveller from Tennessee. Peter, a sprt 50-something looked even fitter than last year if that was possible, due to the physicality of building an additional 10-bed dorm at the back of his existing premises. No matter what time of day or night you land in this place there is always good craic; travellers from all over just seem to gel here, fuelled by the masterful craic of Peter himself. On this occasion I met an Aussie from St Kilda and a hyperactive young dude from Oregon travelling with his exact opposite, a laid back dude from a small island near Ontario in Canada. Ryan, the Canadian, confided that he found his erstwhile travelling buddy somewhat 'loud'. The loud lad, however, proffered some greatly detailed insights about the Czech Republic, well worth storing away for future reference. He also offloaded into my possession a 'France By Bike' book which did little to lighten his load - an entire pannier stuffed with a library of travel books, at which Ryan just shook his head.

I rolled into Eddie's an hour later and one book heavier.

Eddie was in good form, and the same as how I'd left him last - a huge ex-Englishman with a huge smile and a deadly sense of the craic. He had moved across the Irish sea to this little stone cottage in a wind-whipped and remote corner of Ireland, and was restoring the house and his sanity after suffering a big city, big business and big marital depression back in his home country. He told me how he would come home from his graphic design business in Manchester, lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling and not be able to move. He had gathered enough of his fading strength to get out of that life and start anew. We wondered just how many people in a similar predicament never muster the strength to make the jump. Eddie's life was very simple and nurturing now. He metered out his savings carefully, lived simply, and earned a little money from playing the baron or had drum in the Kerry Orchestra. The universe provides; the group had recently returned from a fully-sponsored trip through eastern Europe spreading a little Irish cheer.

I admired his renovations, saying how impressed I was at people who knew how to build and restore houses. I said I would always worry that something was not quite square. Eddie pointed to where the dining room wall met the kitchen wall.

"See that corner?" he said. "Probably not square. But…" he shrugged, "… it only has to last my lifetime".

I remember how I obsessed I use to be over carpet colour and pleated shades during my nesting period some ten years earlier. At that time if you asked me what kind of house I wanted I would have answered in terms of architectural details - glass bricks here, a skylight there, a mezzanine floor with bed over looking the sunken lounge, a verandah. Halogen lights and slate walkways. Ask me now, and the vision is hazy; I can only say it would have to 'feel cozy'.

"That's the hoogs you're missing", said Eddie.

We spent the day dulling out together, eating Rich Tea biscuits and watching Father Ted reruns on video. We concocted a dire-looking supper according to a recipe of one of Eddie's fishing mates - a tin of tuna, Hellman's Blue Cheese Sauce, tin of baked beans, mashed potato and cheese all layered up in a bowl and microwaved. Anyone for seconds?

The average man lives in a state of quiet desperation.

- Brendan Behan (ever so slightly misquoted)

I woke early and set off on a day ride from Eddie's place to Valentia Island, unreachable last November when I sat on the jetty with Matthew, the backpacker from Tennessee, our four eyes peeled for anyone in a boat who'd give us a ride. Not even a stick of driftwood obliged us. Of course I could have ridden over the ten kilometer suspension bridge way over there in the distance, but when you are with a non-wheeled companion, even temporarily, it puts the brakes on you.

This time, no sooner had I rolled across the Portmagee Bridge than the Skelligs Experience Centre sucked me in. I was hungry, and the streamlined tourist-friendly café beckoned from within. I ordered and sat writing a postcard to Matthew, who had probably forgotten who I was by now. My soggy chicken and chutney toasted sandwich arrived with the waitress' apologies: "Sorry 'bout the top it got stook in the toaster".

I eventually extricated myself from this bland watering hole and pedalled west for as far as the road would take me. The road became a rocky track, the ascended up a treeless hill towards the westernmost point in Europe, the Skellig Islands. As I came over the rise the sea unfurled before me, the coastline wending its way south in one direction and north in the other. Straight ahead were the magical Skelligs, two misty, craggy conical rocks jutting out of the sea like the tips of two ancient mountains, the words "Coney Island' and "Lost World of Atlantis" sprang to mind. Perched on the very tip of each was a sixth century monastry surrounded by raging seas. I left the bike parked near an old cement lookout tower and walked down the grassy slope to the very edge of the coastline and sat, staring out at this magical monastic retreat at the edge of the western world.

I finally managed to tear myself away, climbed back up the hill to my bike, then road back through the centre of the island following a sign that said, "Ring of Valentia". All around lay open farmland, then suddenly, just near a turnoff signed 'To Chrlestown' I plunged into what resembled tropical rainforest flanking both sides of the road, dense and lush and not at all like the stark moors of the Ireland I knew. A long sweeping downhill lead me into Knightstown, the happening hub of sober Valentia Island. I cycled up to a phonebox with the intention of calling up Eddie to tell him to come on over and join me for a meal. Waiting outside the phonebox was a Chinese woman who introduced herself as Veronica, born in Trinidad, parents from China, married to an Irishman named Norm and living in Dublin. As I waited I tried to calculate the odds of meeting a Chinese Trinidadian in southwest Ireland but I gave up.

I decided to take lunch at a quirky place called 'The Gallery Kitchen', cheffed by renowned local sculptor, Alan Hall. Alan is famous for his bronze statue of Charlie Chaplin in Waterville, where I had stopped to visit Peter's hostel. Apparently the world's most famous funnyman loved to unwind in the farthest place you could launch a scud from the USA. A glance around the restaurant revealed a cheeky piquancy in the chef-sculptor's art; directly opposite me hung a huge pair of pink plaster buttocks with legs splayed and a french baguette rammed home, captioned with a statement about French nuclear tests somehow being a 'pain in the ass'. Further along the wall a comical character stood frozen in time with a massive willy in hand. I turned to face a more appetising vista, the big oak dining table in front of me. It was just like the traditional formal dining table of my aunt, set with candelabras and fruit bowls and a big vase of flowers, and a glass top protecting a lace table cloth and photos below.

My dinner company turned out to be three 40-something cyclists from the West Coast of the USA, touring the UK, France and Ireland according to the breakneck itinerary devised by the oldest of the trio. One of them, Dick, just happened to be riding the same bike as I, a Bike Friday New World Tourist. The meal was excellent home cooking, the kind I like to cook for myself, and I made a note to return to sample the entire menu. It is interesting that when presented with the chance to eat normal, home-cooked food, it is a delight, and we are even happy to pay for it. Standing on the other side in my commi chef's uniform, I would always think that if people are paying for food, it should be something innovative that they would never cook themselves. I made a note to suggest to Bruce we serve fish fingers with canned peas and instant mash, plus jello and tinned fruit for dessert and see how it sells.

I left Eddie's house at 8.30am and made it back to the kitchen by 2pm, just in time to be a half an hour late, to Bruce's slight annoyance.

"I pay you to be here on time", he said curtly when I wheeled my bike into the courtyard.

He was in the throes of lunch, with scores of orders for hamburgers and veggieburgers flying through the swinging door. He said he made little profit on this trade, but did it to keep up the goodwill. And in a two-street town with a lot of behind-the-hedges gossiping and undermining, and over ten restaurants vying for the picky tastes of the clientele, he needed all the goodwill he could get.

That evening we got several orders for people sharing meals. This annoyed Bruce also. He pointed out that you cannot pay the rent and electricity on five people sharing a 6 dollar vegetarian pizza. I peeked out into the restaurant and sure enough, it was a group of cyclists. Bloody cheapskates. For the first time I was seeing it from the other side, whereas before I would think nothing of buying a half portion or sharing. Now I knew that it produced monumental groans in the kitchen.

Much later I was to work in a mountain top hotel in Costa Rica with four rooms to rent. The tariff was $35 a double. A Dutch and German couple arrived, stared around the simple but cosy room and declared it a rip-off, pointing out that back down the road on the highway was a bigger room for $18. I pointed out to them that a hotel with a swimming pool is going to be more expensive than a hotel without. Here at Avalon Reserve, they could hike through 170 hectares of primary and secondary rainforest, or they could turn around and go stay at the cheaper hotel and walk up and down the road. At one stage I would have been them. And I would have turned around in disgust. I was learning about what it takes to run a business, because I had always been a salaried employee who couldn't care less about who paid the gas bill.

It was a busy night, with every seat full until almost midnight, two hours past the official closing time of 10pm. Out the back, things were frantic. We would whip around the kitchen and out to the prep room at the back like dodgem cars, always mindful of the trecherous swinging door which had a tiny little window to warn of oncoming traffic. Salad leaves were flying everywhere. I now know never to enter a restaurant when it is full. If it is full, things are going nuts out the back. Whenever we were half full there was time to place a garnish without throwing it, serve a soup without spilling it, send out a salad without forgetting the dressing.

After three months of tourist season Bruce gave me a raise from 80 quid a week to 100, in order to keep me on through to mid-September. I was already starting to experience a kind of burnout. I had wanted to know what it was like to work in food and now I was experiencing the downside as well as the upside. The upside is the creativity, and sheer delight in producing something scrumptious to the eye, nose and throat. The downside was that after the initial learning period wears off, you switch into machine mode, turning out the same thing day after day, night after night, always to he same precise standard, always in the same short time frame.

I was also getting a touch of the old loneliness. After the nightly grind of cleaning up the kitchen, putting away all the food, and picking over any untouched dessert scraps that had come back through the door, I would return to my little cold room at around midnight, exhausted. Kary and Joanne tended to eat in their bedroom where it was warmer, there was a color TV and they could fumigate each other without bothering me. So quite often I was left loitering in the streets or in the house with no-one to talk to.

One morning before my shift I happened to be gazing into the window of the local record and video store and suddenly saw the partial answer to my problem: a harmonica! It came with book and tape. I was so excited I took it to the restaurant to show the folks in the kitchen.

"It's the lonely person's instrument," said Tommy.

For three days my harmonica and I were inseparable. It took me about that long to discover how hard the darn thing was to play. In fact I spent a further three days trying to bend a note, and on closer examination of the book, I realized I had been blowing when I should have been sucking. Or was it vice versa?

I was sitting on the front lawn before my belting out exercise three on the harmonica and watching Joanne transplant a rose bush when up strolled Alison, the woman I'd hostelled with in Dublin. She'd gotten me to this town in the first place, lining me up with my short-lived waitressing stint at the Italian restaurant in the Other Street.

Alison was a wily Scot of indeterminate age who lived day to day and was hugely distrusting of the system. Consequently, she refused to sign anything that would give her any kind of ID. A mind as sharp as Bruce's favourite carver, she had completed an Economics Honours degree in her youth, bought some clothes and makeup for and interview, saw everyone else desperately doing the same, then summarily burnt clothes, books and piece of paper, and started living off the seat of her pants. To feed herself and her quest for total independence from the system, she had done just about anything and everything, including living off air for four years in a remote part of West Ireland. Her first job after destroying her degree was tutoring economics students by day, and by night, donning a 'tartie lettle skert' as a cocktail waitress trying to extract as much money from bored businessmen as their expense accounts didn't allow. Another time she worked in a pub making pies, where she spotted an ad in an old newspaper for writers for the Economist, one of Britain's most prestigious business magazines. She wrote to the editor explaining what she was doing, making pies, and what she would really like is a job writing for the magazine. She got an interview. She lost the job, she says, by failing the booze test - the editor managed to get her plastered on whisky proving that if she had to get her subject off balance using the age-old inebriation technique, she would be the one left under the table, sans the information the magazine had sent her to artfully extract. The editor's parting words, however, were, "Never change. Stay the way you are and you will go far". She had indeed gone far, at least when she owned a passport. She had hitched across America on no money, after blowing it in the first three weeks of a two month holiday. It was only then, she said, that the adventure really started. She gave new meaning to the notion of Scots being thrifty. She camped with gypsies. She got thrown out of a truck in the middle of nowhere when she refused to pay 'in kind' for her ride. But more often than not, she said she found Americans disproportionately helpful and caring about her plight. I suggested she write a book called "America on $0 A Day - Doing it the Scottish Way". She shook her head. "These memories are for my enjoyment and whoever I deign to share them with".

Alison was someone I had absolutely no qualms hitching anywhere with. If anything, she should have had qualms about hitching with me, which is exactly what happened when we decided to make the most of my day off and hitch to Killarney, about 12 miles away. The weather was grand, perhaps a little too grand for what turned out to be a hot and completely unsuccessful attempt at getting a ride. We got as far as Kilgarven, the next town, and stood for over an hour in a truck layby lane in the blazing sun as carloads of tourists shot by behind tightly closed tinted windows. Alison, who had never failed to get a lift in her life, remarked that it was probably because there were two of us, and thought it an insidious reflection on the male race that a girl hitching solo is subconsciously seen as a potential shag, even in the deepest sinkholes of the mind of the most honourable male.

Zoom, zoom.

"Heard of 'extremist gardners'?" she remarked suddenly when the hundredth car had zoomed by and we'd run out of things to whine about. These, she said, were radical permaculturists who don't believe in digging, lest the 'lattice' that runs throughout the soil planet-wide is disturbed. Thus, "turning a sod out the back could give a sympathetically aligned gorse bush in Botswana an inferiority complex."

"Oh really….".

Zoom, zoom.

I turned 36 whilst sweating over the 15-second assembly of five organic salads, watching the precarious Chrysler Tower-like creations sail out the swinging doors on a waitress' arm and prayiing that they'd made a safe landing. Actually, there was no time to pray, an order for three taster plates, one nori rolls and a crab cake entrée were already pinned to the shelf.

That morning I had woken early and pedalled down to Dromquinna, a romantically old stone restaurant and lodging house perched on sweeping grounds with dramatic views over Kenmare Bay. My intention was to hire a canoe and go for a birthday paddle. On the way I stopped at Nicky Ned's to collect one of their incomparable TLT's (toasted Turkey Lettuce and Tomato sandwich) and noticed a barefoot girl in hippie clothing eating bread from a huge bag in the trunk of a car. She was a wild-eyed drama queen from Australia; her partner in grime an ex-Eton ex Sandhurst escapee from the UK, who introduced himself as 'Brother Clear'. They lived on 123 acres about 25 kilometers down the road towards Sneem, living in a couple of caravans with their kids and growing vegetables and probably the odd interesting strain of weed. As she stuffed perfectly decent-looking bread and pastries in her mouth (they'd found the day-old stash behind the bakery on top of a skip) and hopped from this foot to that, she told me how she lived off a government pension of 70 quid a week even though she was a foreigner. How did she do it, I wondered. She explained that one day she was hitching and couldn't get a ride, so eventually she lay on the road until the cars had to stop. For this act of desperation she was hauled off to a mental hospital where the doctor deemed her insane enough to register for the lurk. For 70 quid a week, she seemed pretty sane to me.

On coasting into Dromquinna I hired a canoe from Clive, whose girlfriend worked in the restaurant, and paddled out to a couple of little islands, past the odd seal or two bobbing in the calm waters. He came paddling up behind and we collected a bucket of mussels from the rocks around the island. In the distance I saw a man capsize where the water was choppier - I suspect he dug his oar in whilst trying to 'back' - memories of myself making the same mistake in a single scull prevented me from following suit. The owner of the property was a crusty old fellow who had made his billions selling $2 shop stuff, albeit in huge volumes. His eloquent wife Sue, on hearing that it was my birthday, presented me with a little gift from the business - a $2 all purpose carry bag set in three sizes, which turned out to be extremely useful when I finally laid down my apron.

That time came a little more subtly but no less surely than my inauspicious dismissal from the waitressing job in The Other Street. First, my email would not send in the local Net Café called the Bean and Leaf, or the Lean Beef as Phillipe the young waiter use to call it. The owner, accomodating up til now with letting me use the computer for wordprocessing for free, asked when I would pay for the electricity. Further, I did not get served in the Horseshoe bar despite waiting until 11pm. It was time to go.

I finished up at Mulcahy's a week after my birthday, older and wiser about the food business. I learnt three things: 1) After the honeymoon period, it is more fun to be outside the kitchen than in, 2) In a small town, you will never fit in, but that is part of the experience, and 3) never go into a full restaurant. Chances are, there's someone like me out the back waiting to forget the dressing on your salad….

One wonders in this place

Why anyone is left in Dublin, or London, or Paris

Where it would be better, one would think

To live in a tent or hut

With this magnificent sea and sky

And to breathe this wonderful air

Which is like wine in one's teeth

- John Millington Synge

From the wall at the Barracks History Centre, Cahirsiveen

Copyright 2003 Lynette Chiang All Rights Reserved.

New Zealand Rugby Part 2: Brains, Biceps and BAAcodes

2010-12-02T13:51:00.000-08:00

WARNING: Strong Kiwi content including an accent that will melt the hearts of lovers of the Kiwi lilt ...
Watch on YouTube to leave a comment

IS it possible for the words "romance" and "rugby" to tête-à-tête in the same sentence?

Chief behind-the-scenes enabler of the recent NZ Rugby Stars in NY at Saatchi bash, Sarah Smith, makes a ruck and a maul sound like warm handshake and canoodle as she describes the aims and aspirations behind the program - to facilitate a very sporting cultural, educational and potentially economy-enhancing exchange between New Zealand and the USA, via the medium of stellar student Rugby.

I interviewed the NZ Trade and Enterprise attaché at the ThreeTarts, One of Oprah's favorite micro-desserteries in Chelsea, where treats are no bigger than the average Chelsea toy chihuahua ('s poop).

The November 12 event at Saatchi netted $23,000 to fund two very smart and presumeably large-biceped exchange students via the Play Rugby USA program and Auckland Institute of Technology. However, Sarah demurred when I tried to extract exactly the muscle mass required. And women? Women may apply - the somewhat less-hyped but champion NZ women's rugby team is called the Black Ferns. (The women's cricket team is the White Ferns, the netball team is the Silver Ferns).

But, considering the monolithic physiques of the superstar players Botica, Nikau and Jones who spoke at the event, you know brains alone aren't going to do it.

"He was the meanest, biggest ... 6'6" ... knocked me off my feet," said Rugby League legend Tawera Nikau, "but fortunately, I was able to get back at him with an elbow to the temple."

Uproarious - if trepidatious - laughter from the audience.

"And what can American students learn from this?" said Saatchi Chief and Chief Rugby Nut Kevin Roberts, waving a glass of the NZ drop and mischievously relishing the irony. That's the thing about folks from Downunder - we don't seem to take ourselves nearly as seriously as folks Upover - even when we ought.

Sarah pointed out that while being "very big and very funny", these players are more of an inspiration, a role model, than a floor to ceiling and wall-to-wall measuring stick. As with Big Arnie as Governor and Sheriff Reagan as former president, charisma is a degree no Ivy League university can bestow - and for their fans, these Rugby stars have it in spades.

There is some confusion between the two styles of Rugby - League and Union. Extensive Googling reveals that Union is more tactical, League is more of a spectator sport. Union allows unlimited tackles, keeping the ball in play, League allows six tackles before the ball switches sides - a more "stop-start" game like American football. Shoulder charges - the kind you batter a door down with when a lover has locked you out - are not allowed in Union, but it's open slather in League. It is said that Union is a hooligan's game played by gentleman, League is the obverse. All I know is that it must alarm 'mericans that no padding is used at all, aside from the gristle you were born with and pumped up at the gym. I hope someone checks my movie above and comments if I've bamboozled my facts at 2:47.

The playing field for this promotion isn't merely confined to a 144 x 70 meter grass stain either. New Zealand is gearing up for nearly 100,000 visitors next year, with a plethora of business and trade events surrounding the Rugby Union World Cup. Oh, the food of that tiny, verdant land! The lambchops, pies and sausage rolls plied at the Saatchi event could easily ruin a vegetarian streak, as long as you avoid watching re-runs of Food Inc...

I pointed out that every man and his toy poodle seems to want to migrate to New Zealand, what with Lord of the Rings and other captivating imagery. How easy is it to defect?

"Depends what you can bring to the country," said Sarah. Ball handling skills may help, but "The All Blacks are doing well this year."

Meanwhile, you can rub (and not collide) shoulders with a bit of New Zealand at the store where I work one day a week - EMS Soho. The New Zealand Icebreaker and Smartwool underwear is flying out the door. There's even a BAACODE on the Icebreaker clothing you can type into the web and locate the sheep station where your garment came from. No sheep was harmed or muled in the making of this garment et al.

No wonder everyone is romancing New Zealand.

Read Part 1 of this 2-part confab

Ka mate, ka mate! NZ Rugby Stars in New York

2010-11-12T21:16:00.000-08:00

UPDATE:
Kudos korner! Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts shared this video on his blog
MOVIE: Can't get enough of that Kiwi accent? Project Enabler Sarah Smith explains the serious ballplay behind this event.

I confess I'm not a big into ballsports. I was the 5-foot nothing (on a tall day) runt at school and was never picked for anything except extreme cat's cradling (that's the thing you do with a loop of string). And I think I'm going to embarrass myself even further because I've used the word "footie" in a caption in the above clip, a word I suspect is reserved for Aussie Rules football only. Right? Wrong?

So what on Mars was I doing at this rugby function?

My galpal Irene Fong emailed me with a November 12 invitation to a fundraiser entitled "New Zealand Rugby Stars in New York."

I skimmed it politely until I saw the host and venue - Kevin Roberts, and my former employer Saatchi & Saatchi! More about that in a New York minute ...

New Zealand lamb chops! Tasty and tender, and a staple of the suburban Australian - and New Zealand - family meal.

"We're the cheap seats, I know," I quipped when we arrived during VIP hour and were politely told to loiter in the opulent Saatchi & Saatchi foyer.

"I dated a guy whose brother played rugby in the UK, and got hooked," said Irene. "It's exciting. The way they handle the ball ..."

"And very violent," chimed in Lotus, who also tagged along because her salsa lesson was canceled. Yep, unlike gridiron, rugby uses no artifical padding. The players' own muscle and gristle are the padding.

"It's strategic, like soccer outside America," said Irene.

"Soccer with hands!" said Lotus.

Mini pies, a fastish food which has never really trounced the burger in the USA. Baked by Downunder Bakery Pies (DUB)

Inside, we were served sizzling New Zealand lambchops from a company called Pilot Brands and DUB Bakery mini pies and sausage rolls, the food I grew up on in Australia - spitting distance, as we say, from the land of the long white cloud. There was wine laid on from Pernod Ricard, beer from Tuatara Breweries and Shelton Bros and water by Eternal - all Kiwi brands, or near as dammit. Organizer Sarah Smith apparently worked tirelessly to get the genuine Kiwi article at the event.

An impressive fruit platter featured kiwis sliced with the skin left on, suggesting 'mericans don't quite know what to do with that curious little fuzzy fruit (when ripe, slice in half, spoon out; when under-ripe top and tail then, peel with peeler and slice).

No one seemed to know how to cut the under-ripe mango either, so I whiled away a few idle minutes slicing off cheeks, crosshatching and turning them inside out, a legacy of my brief stint as the cook and manager of an eco-hotel in Costa Rica.

The invite said something about "Roberts will moderate a panel discussion with special guests on "the strengths of rugby as an international model for success." In hindsight, this reads as wickedly tongue-in-cheek because the model revealed itself to be little more than "scare the living bejayzus out of your competition before they even pick up the ball" - something you could do if you're selling soap or insurance or digital megaphones, I suspect.

Players, promoters and educators flank the spirited Kevin Roberts ... all hands on deck for rugby education.

After a spirited intro by the effusive Roberts, the three rugby stars on the panel - Michael Jones, Frano Botica and Tawera Nikau - regaled the audience with tales of the "biggest, scariest and meanest" opponents they'd head-butted and butt-headed (see video for that snippet). Nikau, a 6'3" gentle giant, had just completed the New York Marathon, seven years after losing a leg in a motorcycle accident. No more ballplay, but he's now an iconic spokesman for the sport.

The men were congenital towers of power. When I sidled up behind one of them during the mingling I calculated how many multiples of me would fill their silhouettes. Five, maybe six. The sound and inertia of a locomotive hurtling along at full speed filled my brain. It was a similar sensation to when I interviewed models at the Telfar Clemens/Bike Friday fashion shoot, albeit minus 150 lbs a piece.

Sir Paul Reeves, Chancellor of AUT University, with a Daniel Dens screenprint for auction

I sat behind Sir Paul Reeves, who, like a true knight, didn't seem one bit fazed when I said "you have the word Sir on your name tag which makes us feel like we should know who you are", and asked him about his shtick - chancellor of the Auckland University of Technology, which offers rugby at the core of its curriculum. Turns out he once lived in the Seminary block in Chelsea, right around the corner from me.

Roberts, ever the adroit advertiser, made swift work of promoting the artists - NZ photographer/PR maven Brian Sweeny of Sweeny Vesty and NY pop artist Daniel Dens - and other contributers who gifted work for auction, the proceeds of which would fund two exchange students to AUT University in Auckland.

"I came across a painting in Soho of Sophia Loren dressed in not very much with the title 'I owe it all to spaghetti'," got bids for Dens' silkscreens up to $5k. I sought out the affable and smiling Belgian who seemed not one bit affected by his burgeoning success - that alone made me want to buy one of his paintings, the sucker I am for genuinely nice people.

The group suddenly jumped up and performed the Haka, led by Ata Papa and RJ Rewi, the "Full Maori" as it were. The Haka is a warrior dance that precedes every game with an intent to unravel the opposition (see video). Denzel Washington had apparently popped by earlier in the day when the stars were taping Good Morning America and to the delight of all present, performed the haka on his way to the exit.

L to R: Pop artist Daniel Dens, Kevin Roberts, and the Galfromdownunder

So if not a Rugby fanatic prior, how the feck did I come to be there?

I worked as a copywriter and Creative Director in Saatchi offices and afiliated offices in Australia, Ireland and Costa Rica.

Saatchi head Kevin Roberts helped me get my Greencard by writing a reference letter for my petition. I'd never actually met him until this night - his letter was based on my customer evangelism work for Bike Friday, when it topped the inaugural Saatchi & Saatchi Lovemarks contest. The niche Oregon manufacturer actually ended up in his glossy book, The Lovemarks Effect with this double page spread.

Roberts and Vallens whoop it up over a Lovemark in its own right - the Toyota Prius.

What is Lovemarks about? Here's my take. It pre-dated Facebook's "like", allowing people to click "love it" on their favorite brands. An avalanche of "love its" together with some poignant, eloquent letters from the rabid Bike Friday community propelled the obscure brand from nowhere to the top ten within two days of me bleating about it.

"Richard's a good man," said Roberts of customer Richard Vallens, who won the Prius for the best brand love letter. Me? I simply nudged the 25,000 member community from the wings, the life's work of a customer evangelist, or shall we say, "lovemarketeer."

With the US economy tanking, we've never needed "lovemarketing" more than now. Go to Lovemarks.com and champion a few of your favorite things before they're shouted down by mainstream marques. Roberts was clearly walking his talk with this event - judging from the room full of appreciative attendees all munching on lamb chops and swigging NZ's finest drop, that tiny, perfect country - and rugby - are clearly two of his favorite Lovemarks.

Read Kevin Roberts' post about this event

(A belated thank you to all these other people for helping me get my Greencard - even though it was just when the economy started tanking!)

Blast from the past: an ad I did at Saatchi & Saatchi Dublin for Texaco - admittedly with a heavy dose of Aussie irony:: "Behind Irish Rugby for 40 years - No Matter What. (Best of luck in Paris, lads)." The Irish team had never won against the French.

NY Comic-Con: a glimpse at the Industry of Delight

2010-10-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

VIDEO: My brief swan around just a tiny corner of the cavernous Comic-Con convention at the Javitz Center.

PHOTO GALLERY on Facebook

Oink la Rouge by Goran Lelas

My lighthearted, recent FastCompany post on Executive Toys drew a nice little perk: Tenacious Toys, online purveyor of little G-rated adult toys in plastic, vinyl and plush, invited me to the final Sunday mayhem of Comi-Con 2010, a sprawling frenzy of comic and toy fantasy and fandom attracting thousands of strangely dressed people.

Believe it or not, while some executives are having board (bored?) meetings about in C&C machined parts for combine harvesters and tapping their feet 'til knock off time, others are passing around models of a plastic Labbit (Chinglish/Japlish for rabbit) with a smoke drooping from its non-existent mouth. Or baby vampire dolls drinking blood from bottles (vamplets.com). Or strange animals made from what looks like a fluffy toilet seat cover. With impossibly giant noses. That kind of thing.

Slander Snake by Joe Ledbetter

I saved myself $45 on the entry fee thanks to Tenacious Toy's kind "Professional pass" but ended up blowing $130 on stuff I have no room for but couldn't resist. Like this pig by StrangeCo/MOMA/Goran Lelas for $5. And a small snake called Slander by a Joe Ledbetter that opens up to reveal the mouse he ate for lunch. And a t-shirt that read "Drama Free Zone, 50 meters ahead", sold to me by a man wearing a thong down the middle of his face he claimed was to protect Zombies from eating your brain. That kind of thing. Plus a cool dress from Animated Closet that I plan to scare my next client with.

May The Thong Be With You: Zombies will not eat my brain!

It seems that with a lot of toys under $10, toys are little treat, like a manicure, people can still afford - even in the thick of the recession. Hell, I bought an affordable little painting last week too. Am I descending into some kind of second - or maybe first - childhood? Bring it on!

Speaking of recession, I'd like to issue a challenge to toy designers - how about designing a little good luck amulet for jobseekers? One to take to an interview tucked inside your handkerchief pocket, or perhaps brazenly on your zipper pull: "May The Force of Gainful Employment Be With You." I bet you would sell a bunch. Well, at least a few benefit check's worth.

G-Ra akak Gayle Middleton of Vamplets.com

I also want to thank Gayle Middleton aka G-Ra of vamplets.com (pictured right) for letting me store my pink folding bike in the pizza-shaped space behind her booth. It was so very tightly packed in the aisles, the parking space was a godsend. Perhaps the princess pink color swayed her, which matched her bambino-vampire-Goth getup perfectly ..

Read (and comment!) on my FastCompany post on Executive Toys

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Downward Dog Days: Sivananda Kirtans (Chants) - a sampler

2010-10-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

For those who've never experienced a Kirtan (call and response) chant beyond encountering a bunch of Hari Krishnas in the street, here's a little sampler.

I recorded this during one of the Sivananda Vedanta NYC's 8pm Wednesday Satsangs, comprising half hour meditation, half hour chanting, half hour lecture. Yes, you will indeed hear Hare Krishna sung, but you are far from being "converted" against your will. Rather, the chanting is infectious, and wonderful way to free that inner singing voice that unites us all. Have a listen, rock yourself along to one of the Satsangs, and see you at my Tuesday yoga class, where we do just a little of this to get things going!

I wrote about some of my chanting and meditation excursions a while ago, including Sivananda.

San Francisco III: Third and final spin

2010-09-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

It was terrific to be able to actually use the loaner folder for John Chamberlain yesterday, on a quick spin out to Rodeo Beach.

I put out a casual word, and John Trevithick popped up. I knew I recognized his name - he'd sent along this article about the "Trevithick train" for the BF website. I never forget an email address!

My host Paul Skilbeck claims this loop - around 10 miles each way - they perfect wake up call and post work spin. Easy in, easy out, and there's always Sports Basement to blow some non-discretionary dollars in on the way back. Which is what we did!

Rodeo Beach is way over to the left of the above picture. My swansong was, of course, a "healthy" junk food blowout at WholePaycheck. The last remaining slices of pizza at 9pm, the kale salad we all want the recipe for, Barbara's Cheese Puffs (resembling Twisties from downunder), and the kind of wicked little gateau the world doesn't need but stimulates the economy and spirit ... I won't mention the red velvet cupcakes and 88% chocolate bar and ...

Here's a shot of Paul and the two books he wrote, one of which a champion rider said: I was thinking of writing a mountain bike book like Single Track Mind, but now I don't have to. You've done it." Check them out on Amazon:

Thanks to John Chamberlain, who I sold a Bike Friday to way back in 2001, for loaning me his super Dahon:

And to Dan Kaljian, also a long time Bike Friday friend, for driving me all the way to San Jose airport! Here's Dan and his talking parrot Sid Vicious, who listens intently to conversations in his kitchen and on the phone. Sid's favorite bleat: "OH MY GARRRRRRRD!"

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San Francisco II: More great folk from a common spoke

2010-09-12T01:34:00.000-07:00

Folders not forgotten: Robert van der Plas of Cyclepublishing.com shows off his latest book: Bicycle Technology, which, unlike many bicycle books, has a decent section on folding bikes. Spot the Friday!

Another people-packed day in San Francisco.

Working backwards, I had dinner with Robert van der Plas of cyclepublishing.com, a small but earnest publisher of informational and educational bicycle titles. I was impressed to see one of his two new books, "Bicycle Technology", include a certain small, strange little bike that I ride ...

The other book, about the black cyclist Major Taylor, brought back memories of one of my first events at Bike Friday way back in 2002: presenting to the Kids of B.I.K.E. group for which Major Taylor is the father figure:
http://www.galfromdownunder.com/kidsofbike/kidsofbikestory.html

Dan Kaljian, Paul Skilbeck and I had dinner with Robert in his neck of the woods "9th and Irving", south of Golden Gate Park. I could not believe the quirky weather conditions for which this pocket of San Francisco is infamous - misty, foggy, boggy weather!

I kid you not, it was like getting off the bus in the middle of a London fog. "It's perfect," said Robert. "Can't stand all that bright sun." Here's a shot of the area from the Golden Gate Park De Young and Natural History museums. Apparently it's due to a lump of hill called Twin Peaks. Where's that bulldozer?

So to bahn mi sandwiches: I was invited to zip across to Berkeley to join Gerd and Susan Rosenblatt - with whom I rode Route 66 in 2006 - for a highly rated Bahn Mi Vietnamese sandwich in the otherwise unremarkable Peppermint stripmall in El Cerrito:

Gerd had read about them in a New York Times article about sandwiches and googled for a recommended purveyor on the west coast. Below you can see the uplifting effect it had on us - bundle us in a photo booth and we'd be impossible!

L to R: Dan Kaljian, Susan Rosenblatt, Lye Kok, Me, Gerd Rosenblatt. Gerd, a double-century kinda guy in his mid-seventies, is recovering from "a silly fall" but hopes to be back on the bike soon ...

What Bahn mi looks like. Super thin and crispy French-Viet baguette, with some of the fluffy bread removed and then piled with vegetables, marinated meats, sauces and mayonnaises - sweet, salty, crunchy and soft all at the same time. It's the pickled daikon radish, carrot and cilantro that really makes it. Oh, and you can't eat Vietnamese without including some classic Vietnamese rice paper rolls:

A subsequent stroll along the Richmond waterfront reveals this history of female wartime workers - Rosie the Riveter is the heroine figure.

I was all set to bike to Berkeley using John Chamberlain's 16 lb Dahon in conjunction with the Muni/Bart, but Bike Friday customer Dan Kaljian insisted on taxiing me around in his Smart Car - yes, that IS a Hawaiian lei he's sporting!

The morning started out with my host Paul Skilbeck heading out for a spin on his impossibly light 16 lb Specialized bike. But does it fold? I'll see you at the other end of Muni!

Tomorrow... my penultimate day in SF, with a ride to Rodeo Beach over the GG bridge, with however shows up ...

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San Francisco: The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in ...

2010-09-11T00:47:00.000-07:00

It's been 2 years since I last loitered with intent on this coast, so I'm taking a few extra days to catch up with people. Brrr I wish I'd brought long pants and not merely capris!

First, I attended a wedding between Bike Friday customer Grant and fellow yoga teacher Karyn, who I introduced to each other via Facebook. As you can see, so far, so good:

The pro photographer Chris Schmauch of GoodEyePhotography.com made even the oldies scrub up pretty nice:

Coincidentally, my birthday fell on the day before the wedding. A fatal loiter into the Los Gatos Banana Republic led to this 50% OFF YOUR ENTIRE PURCHASE coupon. Oh dear, Santa Cruz will have to wait til tomorrow...

We did eventually get to Santa Cruz. To the horror of my pal David I had successfully negotiated a hitch with a friendly surfie looking couple, who turned their hippie van around and rearranged bikes so we could get in. But he'd already rented a car for $40. So we sped down using carbon power to Capitola, hooking up with world cycle tourer and Bike Friday owner Betsy Schwartz:

I'm a fan of all things Mexico except the food (rice, salsa, re-fried beans and cheese in different arrangements on the plate gets old), with one exception: a killer fish taco, as executed by Steamers, Los Gatos:

Andy, Bree Holoka, our hosts, helped celebrate my birthday in local style:

Maybe I should have brought my folding bike after all. I was kindly offered loaners by Steve, Autumne and Catherine but they were in Los Gatos area. Instead of having to capitulate to a sidewalk sale like this ...

... Bike Friday owner John Chamberlain loaned me his 16lb Super Dahon. I took it for a nite spin with my host and old school pal circa 35 years ago, Paul Skilbeck (www.o2sm.com)

I visited the fabulous de Young museum, lots of cool perforations and indentations all over (designed by Herzog + de Muron):

Here's the tower:

And across the road, the Institute of Natural Sciences with its living domed roofs:

Speaking of Museums, my host Chase took me to SF Moma, but since the $18 entry fee was a little steep, we did the next best thing - hang out in the gift shop!

I also saw the Thom Maine designed Fed building with its great lunch spot in the sky:

Here's another look at this "sustainable" building - air conditioned only up to the fifth floor, the rest by sensored louvres et al. Pity the cafeteria and coffee bars were selling the same old government building high fructose corn syrup transfat crap - no one appears to want to sustain human beings ...

And look at the typically ugly, uninspired kid's playground out the back. There's just no excuse for this. Where's the starchitect now? Don't get me started:

Hung out with Bike Friday owner Audrey Medina in Chinatown for a fairly mediocre dim sum place called Golden Mountain (note to self: never take food recommendations from walking tour books. They're all about walking, not eating):

Rode the $2 cablecar F line, a series of quirky, restored cars from all over the world (thanks Audrey for the shot!)"

An attention-seeking jelly fish held our attention at the science park aquarium ...

Gave my stairwell speech (because you get fitter taking the stairs) to Sunny Teo, Exec Creative Director of Asian Ad Agency, DAE. Thanks to that 50% off Banana Republic coupon, you may now see me occasionally in sober, corporate gray ...

Joan saw my Traffic Cone Bag advertised in RoadBikeRider.com. She came over to collect it from me, and we went gallery hopping including the stunning Asian Art Gallery.

Then we have to eat! Below, from left: Paul Skilbeck, Bike Friday owner Mike Nachtwey and stoker Julia, Joan, Bike Friday owner Dan Kaljian and me.

The tandem was the Porsche for Mike and Julia. "About an hour's pedal from Oakland".

Oh yes ... Joan and I ran into a young archeology student Callan McDonald from Sydney who gave us a full treatise on Burning Man ...

After Moroccan/Tunisian food came the dessert at the Thai place next door - Mitchell's ice cream - yum!

Zzzzzzz ... now getting ready for a Bahn Mi sandwich in Berkeley, dinner with Robert van de Plas of cyclepublishing.com fame, and a ride over the GG bridge tomorrow. Oh yes, the 18 Swedish pancakes with Lingonberry jam at Sears Fine Foods in Powell Street really are that good ...

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Downward Dog Days in NYC: Putting a new Spin on Yoga

2010-09-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

Is my face red ... SPINNING instructor Anthony Musemici says you don't need a long and winding road to get a pretty decent hill, interval, sprint, and endurance training on a bike.

... now add a bit of yoga to the mix and what do you get? SpinYoga! A perfectly Peaceful Warrior pose at the free Chelsea Piers "Yoga On the Pier" classes, Aug 2010.

I just completed a 9 hour Spinning Instructor Orientation at New York Sports Clubs.

Now, what is a seasoned cyclist like the Galfromdownunder doing riding a bike that doesn't go anywhere? As one participant confessed in the pre-course stairwell speeches ('cos you get fitter riding the stairs than the elevator): "I was a bit cynical about it all until I tried it."

Ah yes, one winter in NYC where biking through a bunch of snow isn't appealing, and I discovered, thanks to a two-month intro membership at the Equinox gym down the road and some guest passes from the stunning Chelsea Piers across the road, what a really decent workout this genre of indoor fitness gives you. You can raise your heart rate remarkably quickly just by, uh, turning a red knob. Want a 5% hill? Reach down and turn the knob. Want to careen down the other side? Turn it the other way. If the mountain doesn't come to Mohammed ...

Why, you can even DRAFT on a stationary bike. Take a look at SPINNING instructor Anthony Musemici showing you how it's done ...

I enrolled in this course because I hope to teach what one could loosely term "SpinYoga". I had originally approached the friendly John Boyd, Head of Fitness at Chelsea Piers, to offer the Yoga for Cyclists class I formulated and taught at PACTOUR Arizona Desert Camp. After all, the most used bike highway in the country, the Hudson Guild Bike Path, zips right past the massive Chelsea Piers complex, right?

He instead mentioned something about "yoga spin" and a lightbulb went on. Much encouraged by him to just "go for it" - because it's wonderful to have the chance to learn new things - I enrolled in the very heavily booked class.

My idea is to teach a 30 mins spinning workout on the bike, then 30 min yoga session. A compact, 1-hour, all-in-one aerobic, flexibility and strength interlude for the stressed out, time-compressed, ADHD city slicker. Perfect for the time ... of which there isn't a lot (You can make more money, you can't make more time).

But what about the third leg in the trinity of fitness - weight and resistance training? I personally believe that yoga poses involving lifting your body weight are ample for the average person just wanting to maintain a kind of functional, all-round fitness - "using it, not losing it." Like Chaturanga (plank/pushup pose) in all its variations, Peacock pose and other arm balances and so forth. And of course, let's not forget shoulder shrugs using a couple of shopping bags with cans of tomatoes, and other exercises I captured in this video of orthopedic surgeon Dr Chris Dangles on Route 66:

Speaking of Route 66, that expedition was of course led by Race Across America legend and PACTOUR founder Lon Haldeman, who I worked with for many years in my capacity as the Bike Friday Customer Evangelist.

And get this ... it turns out the SPINNING empire was founded by a Johnny G, who invented the training regime so he could bone up for ... Race Across America! Read this pretty decent bio of Johnny G here.

Just like a wheel, so many spokes radiating from a common center, all connected in the same circle!

I popped up to investigate the handful of bikes in the Chelsea Rec center where I volunteer teach yoga, where I'll hatch my class ...

John my Galfromdownunder Yoga Facebook page to stay in touch.

Galfromdownunder Yoga Page

This is how you'll feel after: but you can't! You gotta get up and go back to work!