Wellington has a long way to go...

http://www.streetfilms.org/ciclovia/

Interesting article about the chief financial officer of Giant Manufacturing, the world’s biggest bicycle maker, aka “the godmother of bicycles”.

"By and large, the world thinks of bikes as an exercise in machismo on wheels, from muddy mountain bikers to lycra-clad road cyclists or commuters taking their chances with the lorries and taxis that seem to claim ownership of the roads. Ms Tu has other ideas"

The bike in the image is a Giant Suede, ideal for riding on the next frocks on bikes ride. While I would not be caught dead one one I'm greatly in favour of the diversification of bikes so that theres a model for everone.

Saw Avatar the other night, unfortunately not in 3d. Its a visually stunning tale of noble savages vs the standard US marines in space. One of my favorite authours Greg Egan has a good review of it here, I agree with his thesis that the story was uninspiring but technically its incredibly good and a glimpse of things to come.

It dismays me how SF movies/tv and video games can't seem to feature a plot that does not include a strait forward projection of the US military in a futuristic setting. I think the phenomenon is very much tied to the budget and the number of people involved in the production, as soon as there are more than a handful of people involved and there is someone other than the person making the film/game financing it, origionality takes a nosedive.

I think this is the reason that most screen SF leaves me cold whereas I still love reading good SF, writing a novel is a soiltary activity and you can do it without a budget.

Day two, hot but good fun.

Today we did:

Hot-x-buns, dragon tail, te ara puna, frontal lobotomy, huckelberry hound, little red riding huck/corners, bunny jugs 1 & 2, dragon tail, end of be rude not to, lion trail, soak hole, grinder, mad if you don't.

Out of the tracks we haven't done before we thought soak hole was shit and a bit of a make work track, Dragons tail and te ara puna were pretty good and we enjoyed the corridor yesterday. The hucks and hot-x were great again.

Callum if you look at the photo Mike is in the air so it fits the criteria, it's from near the end of Hot-x bun. We had a bit of a fail because we wanted todo Tuhoto Ariki and No Brains via Split enz but it was just too much of a mission and doing three big hill climbs followed by a long jungle track was too much.

Off to do Whirinaki tomorrow.

Good day riding Rotorua day 1. Took Campbell along.

Did:

A-Trail, The Tickler, Sidewinder, Lentil link, frontal lobotomy, Bily T, Split Enz, pondy, rollercoaster, chop suey, Spring roll, sweet-n-sour, b rude not to, mad if you dont, Tahi, Creek track, piglett, pig track, the corridor, turkish delight, the grinder, the dipper, tahi.

Can't say any more because Mike wants to go riding, back to Wakarewarewa today and out to Whirinaki Tomorrow.

Thanks to Andy for the pic.

Catalyst Team "Tuff like Kittens" won the business category at Wild Wellington 2009 and 11th overall. Thanks to Andy for the the image. All in all it was a great day, we'll be back to defend the title next year. More photos here.

The 2009-2010 edition of the best fish guid is out.If you have not seen it before its a guide to how sustainable the fishery for each species is. They also produce a handy foldup guide which I keep in my wallet for supermarket shoping. Its worth paying attention to if you want your grandkids to know what orange roughy tastes like.