The Brisbane to Gold Coast bike ride is in less than 2 weeks so yesterday I thought I’d better jump on the old bike and start training. I wasn’t too ambitious, opting to ride only half of the B-2-GC’s 100km distance.

I started from my house and rode a loop out to the Redcliffe Peninsular and back. To avoid magpies, I attached about 20 cable ties to my helmet making me look like a porcupine. To my surprise it worked, well kinda, that is to say I didn’t get attacked by any magpies but I did have a plover take a swipe at me.

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On the way I passed:

• 3 Bunnings stores
• 6 Subway stores
• countless churches
• and through 14 suburbs

The worst drivers were around the Strathpine area – fearing for my life on a few occasions.

The ride took me 2 hours and 30 minutes. I burnt 1475 calories and averaged a heart beat of 166 bpm.

By the end of the ride I was wrecked. It’s now 12 hours later and I’m still feeling all sorts of un-christian pain. I’m not so sure I’m going to be able to make the final ride in two weeks. We’ll see.

I love watching the tennis match between Europe and the US as the world rotates!

Does anyone else reckon that Rove is the 2000′s answer to Darryl Sommers?

At least with Daryl you can forgive him as his no talent was original, but with Rove he’s not only talentless but he seems to be so untalented that he has to copy Daryl’s talentlessness.

C’mon Australia! Let’s get a decent late night show up on the air.

This weekend we trekked up to Toowoomba to visit my Mum and Jet. Mum undertook the mammoth task of looking after our 2 and 1/2 year old nephew while his mummy – my sister – and his daddy went to Thailand to celebrate their honeymoon.

Jet is very close to his parents so we thought Mum might be in for a rough time with him missing them. However after visiting him this weekend, we can tell he misses his parents terribly but being the trooper he is, he’s having such a great time with grandma while he waits for them to return.

There was plenty of things to do this weekend to entertain the little monster. Toowoomba hosted their annual flower festival and we arrived just in time to see all the floats travel down the main street for the parade. Jetty was waving his two flags very enthusiastically as the performers made their way past. It’s great to see towns with a real community spirit.

We had an awesome two days up their and it was really great to spend some quality time with my nephew and establish my position as favourite uncle.