Man stuff.

Heading off from the training camp saw us faced with a full day of driving to get to Shepparton for the Oceania Road Cycling Championships. Somehow through the years the call of “road trip” has lost a bit of it’s lustre. We headed off pretty early in the morning, just to have some time up our sleeves in case we needed some contingency planning. On the whole, the drive went pretty well. With a few driver swaps and quick meal stops, it’s amazing how much distance you can cover in a big country.

The Mallee country will never be somewhere I’d like to call home, but I can see why people that live there are bred tough. With all the recent flooding, there was plenty of green, which made a nice change to the previous times I’ve been through the area.

Speaking of flooding, we did hit a point where the water completely covered the road for a section of about 2oo metres. If I was driving a diesel tractor and needed to escape a bushfire, I’d have given it a crack. In a modern station wagon, towing a trailer full of expensive bike kit, no chance. Although, it would have been fun to see someone else try it and fail, would have made great copy for the regional TV news.

So with a brief detour, we were back on track and made it into Shepparton in the early afternoon surprisingly rested and ready for the great unpack. Moving umpteen wheel bags upstairs had the cleaning ladies ask me how long I was moving in for. Not for how long, but for how many. Then it was time to unpack the camper that I had packed full of race food, bidons, eskies, food prep equipment and other odds and ends. And all that was before the squad turned up and we had to find room for a dozen bike boxes and bikes. I’m sure there are medivac stations that are easier to pack and move than a cycling team.

While the lads were out on training rides, the cars, camper and trailers all needed a clean. So me and my soignie mate Danny headed off to the car wash. After a good play session with some high powered water hoses and commercial soaps, the vehicles came out looking spic and span. The dust and road grime of the road trip was the easiest to clean, the tricky bits for me was trying to get the dead locusts out of the bike roof racks atop the car. Those little suckers were well jammed. It certainly took me back to the days of washing the old man’s car for my pocket money.

What would a story about man stuff be without a trip to the hardware store? We did manage to head to the big box hardware store a couple of times. One of my trips there could be considered an emergency trip. I had just finished washing the trailer and was swinging the water out of the brush when the rubber grip slipped off the handle, sending the brush rocketing to the concrete floor of the car park. Just my luck, well, I was lucky it was just the brush that broke.This brush was unexpectedly bouncy and maybe it was for the best the handle hit me fair in the chest as opposed to say, the window of the car next to me, maybe? Knowing the mechanic was due back in half an hour it was time to get a move on. So I find out that the hardware big box doesn’t stock car washing brushes, sheesh. Feeling a bit time pressured, I gave the car a bit, squealed the tyres out of the car park, hung one arm out the window and found me an Auto 1 store. Sweet array! I was pretty happy with my find, nice bristle softness, good short handle, ergo grip. This brush was ticking plenty of OH&S and style boxes. I zoomed back to HQ to find the mechanic arrived and duly apologised for my error and handed him the new brush. The first thing he did was run his hands through the bristles, nodded, and commented on the short handle was much more functional. I had done good.

Man stuff isn’t just about hardware stores, driving (I did 3 trips to the airport, a 350km round trip each time) and motor vehicles. It is also about toys. Now, as some of you  may know, I don’t really get into the whole sat-nav malarkey. But to see a new sat-nav set up for both bike and car get pulled fresh out of the box, the happiness of Christmas and new toys was brought to our apartment. I was overcome enough to do the non-masculine thing of reading the instructions. For sure, if it was mine, I would have gone down the trial and error path and only resorted to the instructions when the obstacles to getting the damn thing to function became insurmountable. Women may not understand this approach, and to them, including my poor mother, it’s just the way of things, don’t try to understand it, just let it be.

And onto headphones. Facing an extraordinary amount of travel this year, I thought it might be time to invest in some headphones. “I hear you’re a man who knows how to get things”, our mechanic reminds me of Red from The Shawshank Redemption and as I’ve mentioned before, mechanics are a wealth of knowledge and never afraid to have an opinion. So, after listening to some sage advice with a bit of chin scratching and nodding, I headed off to find me some. I balked at the cost of some of the noise cancelling headphones, even if they did sound marvellous, and I may upgrade in the future. I ended up with some headphones that I think will fit the bill and have a German sounding name. My mates who were into cars, back in the school days always seemed to end up with stereo equipment with German sounding names, so I hope I’ve done them proud. The bets for how long they will last have started coming through, as I am sure to break them at some stage. I am pleased that my initial guess of 3 days was short of the mark.

And the racing? We filled out the podium in the Men’s U23 time trial with Damien Howson winning. Richie Lang won the road race, which gave him the U23 gold. Good stuff lads. To top that off, Shara Gillow won the TT and the road race, so that should keep the bosses happy for a while.