Meet Bronwyn's

The title to this story isn't a typo (Who is Bronwyn?) or an incomplete sentence (Meet Bronwyn's what?), Bronwyn's is the name of a downhill mountain bike track at the Gap Creek riding area in Brisbane. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of making her acquaintance.

The entrance of Bronwyn's is marked by a large sign that displays a black diamond and lots of serious warnings like "Very difficult terrain" and "Don't ride beyond your skill level" and "There be monsters here" and stuff like that. Passing a black diamond sign can be the beginning of a little apocalypse that ends in tears (both kinds, sometimes), but I've done it hundreds of times on skis and mostly I know what I'm doing. This, however, was my first time down a black diamond run on a mountain bike. (Those signs with two black diamonds are a whole different matter. The only time I ski'd a double black diamond run was at Breckenridge and it didn't go well. Ski down half, fall down the other half, brush the snow out from down my back, walk up half to get the skis, ski down a third, fall down a quarter, brush out more snow, walk up a quarter to get my skis again and then walk all the way to the bottom to meet up with the instructor and rest of the group who have been watching me ski, fall, brush and walk for so long that they've all turned blue and started shivering.)

However, Bronwyn's is not about skiing it's about riding, and even if I didn't know what I was doing I was going to do it anyway! I had read the almost evangelical reviews of this track on mtbdirt and seen pictures of the sensational looking structures that had been built and I was here to ride. Monsters, be damned!

The start of the track is steep and I had to get way behind the seat and really push into the pedals to stay in control. I remember thinking "I've never done this before", but whatever I was doing seemed to be working and I was riding down the hill. It wasn't going fast, but the bike was going where I wanted it to and I wasn't skidding or falling off.

So far, so good.

The all-rock corner (picture #1) was the first big challenge.



This corner is a lot steeper than it looks in the picture and that is because there's a warp in the time-space continuum right at that start of the corner that increases the gravitational pull of the earth. One day scientists will discover this gravitational warp and study it in great detail but until then trust me - gravity sucks really hard at the entrance to the rock corner.

The log at the approach is right where you would want a nice piece of flat track so you can brake, look at the whole corner and get your line and speed right. Instead, I found myself looking under my handlebars, trying to see if there was anything on the other side of the log (perhaps a black hole or a neutron star?) as my front wheel disappeared over the edge. What I could have done instead was follow the advice on the sign and stop, get off, walk down the hill, check everything out very carefully from several different angles, make a few decisions and then go back and ride with the confidence of an assured man. Instead, I was rolling down the hill, looking for stellar objects and figuring things out as I went along.

(Now before you take the "he should be riding safely!" high ground, let me point out that there is a profound flaw in the "check it out first" approach for a rider of my limited skill and experience, and I'll get to that in the context of the next major obstacle.)

After my front wheel landed downhill from the log (missing the invisible stellar object) I was too far on the inside of the corner, with my weight forward and carrying a little bit too much speed. I was on both brakes and steering back toward the middle of the track when I had a big moment that involved a dug-in front wheel and that horrible feeling when the bike starts to rotate around its front axle with rider attached. I thought "This isn't working!" as I got off the brakes, yanked on the bars and closed all open sphincters. It's funny how time slows during these "Is this how it will end?" moments (this could something to do with the gravitational field) because I also remember having enough time to think "Whatever happens next, there is no plan C". Fortunately the front wheel started rolling again and the rear wheel re-united with the earth and I skipped and bumped through the corner. It wasn't pretty, but I somehow maintained vertical superiority over the bike and stayed on the groomed stuff.

No apocalypse yet!

The near endo at the rock corner was the biggest adrenaline rush I'd ever had on a Mountain Bike. Who knew it would be mere seconds before I experienced an even bigger one.

The next section of the track has some great sweeping corners (picture #2) and jumps (picture #3) that all came and went without too much drama.





In fact, some of the jumps had me sailing through the air and landing with a big grin. I probably should have been landing with both wheels simultaneously as well, but that's a mere technicality. As the rear-engineers at Porsche say: form follows function.

I was really getting into the flow of the track and having a ball until I got to Evil Knievil's Grand Canyon Launch Ramp Replica (patent pending)(picture #4).



This thing looked so ominous that I stopped, got off the bike, walked down the hill, checked everything out very carefully from several angles and made a few decisions on how to ride it. The first decision was that I would rather fall over the tree than into it because that would surely hurt a lot less. I really didn't know how fast to ride over the ramp so I decided to ride a little bit faster than whatever speed I reckon is the ideal speed, so that if I did fall I would probably maybe land the other side of the tree.

The alert reader will at this point have seized on the fundamental flaw with the logic behind this decision and it is this: it's a positive feedback loop with no break point. The loop runs like this: speed up until you're going about the "ideal speed", then go a "little bit faster" just to be safe. Now you're really going the "ideal speed", right? Right! So, having reached the ideal speed, go a "little bit faster" just to be safe. Repeat several "little bit fasters" until you realise you're going way too fast and then panic.

That's not the all of it, either. Recall the profound flaw in the "look at everything first and then decide how to ride it" approach I mentioned earlier? Well, it's this: I simply don't know what I'm looking at. I could walk up and down that run fourty seven times taking measurements and photographs and GPS readings, but I have never ridden over Evil Knievil's Grand Canyon Launch Ramp Replica (patent pending) or anything remotely like it before so I have absolutely no idea what to do. I can see it's about a metre tall and it looks steep on the way up and steep on the way down, but so what? What does that mean? How fast does one ride over this thing? How far back does one lean? Does one lean back at all? Does one need to pedal at any point? If so, what gear should one be in? Should one turn one's iPod off? I mean, what if Billy Joel's Uptown Girl starts playing while I'm approaching the ramp and I start convulsing with disgust? I don't want to die listening to Uptown Girl! What if it was still playing when they discovered my body? The humiliation would be more than any grieving family ought to endure. So the net of all that angst is that the only decision I could possibly make about riding Evil Knievil's Grand Canyon Launch Ramp Replica (patent pending) was to ride over it too fast.

Aristotle would not have been impressed with my thinking, but Evil might have laughed out loud if he saw the look on my face as the bike and I inadvertently became airborne at the top of the ramp. I can't say how fast I was going, or what gear I was in, or where my weight was positioned, but I can tell you that for a split second I was so bloody terrified that time stopped. The wind stopped blowing, birds froze in mid-flight and the bush went totally silent as I hovered, all puckered and panicked, over the top of Evil Knievil's Grand Canyon Launch Ramp Replica (patent pending).

I don't think I was more than a couple of inches off the timber because I rode the downhill part of the ramp, albeit with my front wheel hanging in the air, but for a second it really felt like I was flying. After I got back on terra firma and started breathing again I stopped the bike and laughed uncontrollably for a few minutes at the sheer thrill of being alive.

(The Launch Ramp episode reminds me of a story, told to me first-hand, of a soldier who was running towards his Humvee during a mortar attack when the vehicle exploded. The force of the explosion knocked him a over t through the air and he landed, after a full somersault, unhurt and flat on his back. He burst out laughing at having cheated death by mere seconds and lie there laughing uncontrollably until his sergeant's giant black frame appeared out the clear blue sky to drag his commanding officer into the nearest foxhole. I think I know how the guy felt.)

After the launch ramp, Bronwyn's continues rolling along with lots of great terrain and a terrific timber corner (pictures #5 and #6) that is actually relatively easy to ride around if you don't go too fast and stay on the bottom level.





If, however, you ride around the bottom level and then think "That was too easy! I'll go back up and do it faster so I get up on the higher level and have even more fun!" then you might end up discovering, as I did, that it's a good idea to get your front wheel down when you exit the corner otherwise you'll land at a funny angle. Funny, strange that is, not funny ha-ha, because it isn't funny ha-ha to ride straight at a tree. (But it is funny ha-ha to miss it.)

It's fitting that such a great track as Bronwyn's saves the best until last with piece of elevated track that simply has to be ridden to be fully appreciated (picture #7).



It's also fitting that a story like this excludes some of the treasures of this terrific track, so I'll leave it to your imagination what Bronwyn's final fling is really like. However, I can reveal that the ramp is not the same width all the way down, the long black marks you can see are not grain in the timber and there's quite a bit of not much at all at end of the ramp (picture #8).



Now if only there was a chairlift at the bottom of this terrific black diamond run to whisk you back to the top of the hill.

Kudos to all of the people at the SE Queensland mtbdirt.com.au community who put their time and resources into conceiving and building this fabulous mountain bike track and thanks to Pallen for the pictures.

It's only rock and roll...

The first rock concert I ever went to was Midnight Oil at the ANU refectory. I was 17 which meant I was too young to be drunk and too clumsy to be dancing at the front of the stage with all the cool people who could actually dance. But youthful ignorance and beer in a plastic cup triumphed and it was a helluva night. The music was organ-rupturingly loud and the lead singer (the current Labour party Member for Kingsford Smith and Shadow Federal Minister for Climate Change, Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Mr. Peter Garrett) danced like a burning pelican and sweated all over me, which was also pretty cool. For me, that is, not for him. After the concert I remember walking out into the cold Canberra night air and wondering if the ringing in my ears would ever go away. (Beg your pardon? Oh, sorry, no it hasn’t).

Sitting in the second row of a Dire Straits concert with a head-splitting migraine headache at age 20 was never going to be as much fun as the Oils. Driving like a maniac through Sydney traffic in a borrowed Alfa Sud to arrive almost late and very stressed was definitely not the way to begin a great night out (but as I found out, it is one way to trigger a migraine headache). The music was so very, very good that it should have been a great concert, but the band was so very, very stiff that they looked like the animatronic Presidents at Disneyworld, only less interested in what they were doing, and I just couldn’t get into it. About half way through the second song I started worrying about what the owner of the Alfa was doing to my motorbike. (I shouldn’t have worried – it could never have compared to the merciless flogging I was giving his wonderful little Italian car…)

Billy Joel at age 21 was a decent night out right up until he played “Uptown Girl” and my organs almost ruptured in disgust. How could the man who did the inimitable New York State of Mind write such mindless pap? I guess staring at the abyss through an alcoholic haze can make people do all sorts of desperate things. (Come to think of it, wasn’t that how Dubya got his start?)

That was it for me and rock concerts for 14 years until I saw The Rolling Stones play at FedEx field in Washington DC in 2002. I won the tickets at an office function where the BSD (Big Swinging D…ispenser-of-tickets) said “Pick a number between 1 and 1,000 and whoever gets closest to the number I’ve picked wins the tickets.” The room was full of IT consultants, a group not known for their ability to listen to instructions, and I thought “I bet they all think he said “pick a number between 1 and 100” and they’ll pick 7 or 23 or 64 or other some small number” so I picked 599 and I won the tickets. Maybe I just got lucky, but I reckon they weren’t listening.

The Stones put on a pretty damn good show. It wasn’t a life-changing event or anything, but with those songs and amazing video screens it was pretty good stuff. The sound was crap of course, but we were sitting in Row 6,788, Section ZZC, Aisle 94a and it was a marvel of modern technology that the sound even reached us at all. The long sound delay was to be expected as we were at sea level and the speed of sound slows considerably in the denser air, but I kind of enjoyed watching the band walking off for a break while listening to “You make a grown man cry-yi-yi-yi-yiiiiiii”. For most of the concert I couldn’t help thinking that watching The Rolling Stones in 2002 was like watching the dancing bears at the circus. The amazing thing is not how well the bears dance, it’s that the bears dance at all. Sir Mick Jagger more than danced however, he bounced around the stage all night like an angry Duracell bunny on speed trying to flick sticky tape off his fingers (or perhaps I was really watching an angry Duracell bunny on speed trying to flick sticky tape off his fingers – it was hard to tell from where we were sitting). FedEx field is near Andrews Air Force base and just before the concert started, Air Force One flew over the ground followed very closely by a B2 stealth bomber. I wonder if the President was looking out the window saying “Gosh darn that’s bad. It must be worse down there on the ground!”. I also wonder if the pilot of the B2 was waving his arms and screaming “Get out of the fucking way! Why doesn’t anyone ever get out of the way of this damn thing!?”. I guess I’ll have to wait 30 years until the records are declassified to find out what was really going on up there. Apart from a near plane crash, the highlight of the concert was Keith Richards introducing his solo by saying through a cheeky grin: “It’s good to see everyone. It’s good to see anything at all.” A lot of people laughed because it sounded genuinely ad-lib and we all thought we’d been watching animatronic robots.

This year we took our 2 year old and 8 month old boys to see the Rolling Stones of kiddie rock: The Wiggles. For those who may not have been standing in the car park on opening day of the Tuggeranong Hyperdome shopping centre (a Woodstock like event in that more people attended every year that passes), The Wiggles actually started out as a rock cover band called The Cockroaches. The Cockroaches were crap of course, but as far as I was concerned I was going to a rock concert! We booked the tickets 6 months in advance, as you do with The Wiggles because they sell out in hours. We didn’t know where we’d be living in Australia so we picked Newcastle, which we thought for sure we’d be close enough to drive to. By the time concert rolled around we were living a thousand kilometres away in Brisbane, and we had a “major travel event” getting to Newcastle that included two missed naps, an insufferable 6 hour delay in Brisbane airport and airport food for lunch and dinner before it finally ended at 1am the next morning when we slumped exhausted and over-tired into our hotel room. Apparently the delay was caused by the plane hitting a bird when landing in Brisbane and being put out of service. Either that, or “bird-strike” is the Work Choices doublespeak for industrial action by airline hostesses. Either way, it wasn’t a good way to start a big day out with the kids, but come hell or high-water we were going to make it to the show. I almost missed the start of the show sitting in the car while Paterson slept, but I got to my seat seconds before the lights, camera, action began. The show started with The Wiggles driving onto the stage in their big red car, waving and smiling and singing “Toot, Toot! Chugga, Chugga! Big Red Car!” while the camera zoomed in on each one in turn for their “meet the kids” moment. When the guitar playing Murray Wiggle’s baggy-eyed, wrinkled, ageing visage flashed onto the huge video screen I thought “Bugger me! It’s Keith Richards!” so I jumped up and started playing the air guitar while chanting “Roll-ling Stones! Roll-ling Stones!”. Number one son took a few seconds to size up the situation before saying (as he likes to do whenever his parents sing) “Stop!”. So I shut up, sat down and enjoyed the show. Honest – I really enjoyed the show. The Wiggles were great and would beat the crap out of Dire Straits and Billy Joel put together if they ever got into a stage fight. Of course the real highlight of the day, the sheer heart-melting, mind-altering joy of it all, was watching our two year old dance and sing along with a band that he absolutely idolizes. The little fella knows every word of every Wiggles song and quite a few of the dances as well. He went nuts. It was so much fun watching him having that much fun that we couldn’t help laughing hysterically when he did the wiggle groove right off the edge of the floor and disappeared down the back of the seats in front of us. We scooped him up and he cried for about 3 seconds before getting right back into the groove.

Yes, I know it’s only rock and roll, but I really do like it.

The Last Formula One Race

(The main part of this article was written in June 2005 after I attended the US Grand Prix where only six cars started.)

You probably already heard about the 14 Michelin-tyred drivers who didn't start the US Grand Prix and the consequent 73 lap Ferrari, Jordan, Minardi parade. Let me tell you first hand what it was like at the track.

It was pathetic.

Nobody in the crowd had a clue about what was about to happen until after the warm-up lap when 14 cars pulled straight into their garages. I thought they must all be changing tyres and starting from the pits and I said as much to my two mates who I had dragged along to watch their first F1 race. "This is going to be very interesting, fellas. All these cars are all going to start from pit lane! Should make for a very interesting race.". Wrong. They didn't change tyres - they just didn't race. The crowd was absolutely stunned. So was the track commentator Tom Carnegie who was lost for words. (Carnegie has called every major race at the Indianapolis motor speedway since 1946 and knows how to talk about motor sport.)

The "race", if you can call it that, was a total farce (it started on-time of course - the penalties for a late-start and all that lost satellite air-time are too high even for a rich sport like F1 to countenance). For the first 10 laps or so it seemed like all six cars were turns 5 & 6 at the same time. That's how slow the Ferraris were going. (Schumacher qualified 3 seconds faster than the slowest Minardi and would normally have been half a lap ahead by lap 10.)

The day could have been salvaged in a well-deserved ironic twist when Schumacher drove Barichello off the track in turn one, however they managed to avoid taking each other out (perhaps the penalties for that are higher than for a late start) and the charade continued right to its pathetic end. It's a pity - Ferrari deserved to DNF and a Minardi 1-2 would have been a fitting end to the whole debacle.

The fans, to use the local vernacular, were pissed. People walked out, threw stuff onto the track, gave the bird to the drivers, booed the teams, made signs with "$'s back" and "Axe Max" and generally tried to express how thoroughly disgusted they were at being ripped off in such a "fuck y'all" kind of way.

I was listening to the TV coverage on a scanner and heard the "off air" chat between the commentators and the director. Good thing they were off air. Speed TV interviewed a bunch of drivers while the farce was unfolding and couldn't use any of the interviews because the drivers were all swearing too much.

So who was right and who was wrong? Michelin? The FIA? The Teams? Ferrari? The Track? The Bubba in the Corner 6 stand who spilled his beer in my camera bag? Who the hell cares!

Imagine if you charged a quarter of a million people a chunk of change to watch an event and you didn't deliver. For a European-based sport that is trying hard to build it's US market share it's difficult to imagine a more stupid act. They should have figured something out and run a safe, competitive race. Or at least refunded the fourty bucks I spent on five Fosters and a pork sandwich. Actually, come to think of it, getting drunk was the highlight of the day. That and the pit girl holding number 42 for the Formula BMW support race. And the girl holding 6, and the one holding 13 and the one holding 7. And the one holding 22. And the one standing opposite the one holding 22. And the one behind her. The pork sandwich wasn't too rough either.

The FIA can take their over-priced, over-hyped flying circus and shove it up their rich, fat arse. That's the last F1 race I'm paying my hard earned money to see.

Cheers,
Danny

PS I wonder if they'll have the same pit girls next year? That might make it worth going. I'll let you know.

PPS (November 2006) I didn't go the next year, and neither did tens of thousands of other disenfranchised fans. 2006 attendance was way down from 2005 and a mere fraction of the 225,000 that attended the 2000 race. There were even empty seats in Stand H and those are premium seats that are usually sold out months before the race. The kind souls at the US GP ticket office mailed me three free tickets, and free parking, all I had to do was drive 2 hours up the road. Sorry fellas - I have better things to do.

Cars and computers go together like software and viruses

Ever noticed how computers are taking over more and more of the car's operations? In the space of a few short years computers now control the car's engine, throttle, gearbox, drivetrain, steering and brakes. Not to mention the stereo, navigation, climate control, lights, wipers and seats. The key to this amazing and rapid computerisation is software. This is especially true in high-performance vehicles that use electronic aids in an attempt to wring every last increment of performance out of those four little contact patches where the rubber meets the road.

Cue the Mazda6 MPS - a turbo-charged, all-wheel drive, uber-sedan that applies lots of clever software to a very sophisticated drivetrain to produce very high levels of performance. I recently test-drove the Mazda6 MPS and I can report that it's a sophisticated, refined and very rapid motor car. It's a remarkable car.

One of the more remarkable things about the 2006 model Mazda6 MPS, aside from the ballistic acceleration, tenacious grip and sure-footed handling, is the brochure. Not for the usual rich artwork (Wow - look at that blurred car! Will my car look like that?) and ego-flattering imagery (Your heartbeat will accelerate rapidly in the MPS as beautiful women throw themselves onto your bonnet and scream "Pick Me! Pick Me!"). No, the truly remarkable thing about the Mazda6 MPS brochure is the last page on the Mazda Maintenance Program that confidently asserts that one of the many benefits of owning this vehicle are the regular, direct from the factory…(wait for it)… software updates.

"… Mazda Service Centres can receive constant updates for Mazda6 MPS from Mazda Motor Corporation Japan"

Constant software updates? What is this, Windows Update for my car? Do I have to register? What if I only have a dial-up connection? What if I have a Mac? Should I backup my car before applying an update?

The brochure continues:

"Among other things, they can include tune-ups to the engine management system and revisions to the all-wheel drive system."

Among other things? What other things? Korean language support? New device drivers? I can understand revisions to the engine management system, but revisions to the all-wheel drive system? What’s that all about? Adding a fifth wheel?

I've been hanging around software for long enough to know what this is all about. It's about bugs. The thing has buggy software. Mazda, of course, knows the software is buggy (after all, they have the Test Plan and Final Integration Test results) and their spin doctors are turning bug fixes into an automotive must-have.

As I contemplate the ownership experience of a Mazda6 MPS I can just imagine driving the car really fast and falling off the road. (Well, it has happened before...). The conversation might go something like this:

Police Officer/Tow Truck Driver/Insurance Agent/Wife/God: "What happened?"

Me: "Well, I was driving a bit briskly around this off-camber, tightening radius corner and I pressed skip on my iPod and the thing spun backwards into the trees. It’s never done that before!"

Police Officer/Tow Truck Driver/Insurance Agent/Wife/God: "It wasn't the Nano, was it?"

Me: "The Nano?! No. It's a regular iPod."

Police Officer/Tow Truck Driver/Insurance Agent/Wife/God: "With the touch wheel or the click wheel?"

Me: "I dunno! It's the 20 Gig model. Anyway, what difference does that make?"

Police Officer/Tow Truck Driver/Insurance Agent/Wife/God: "Never mind. Were you running MPS SP2 with the updated MP3 and Yaw drivers?"

Me: "I dunno!! I ran MazdaUpdate a few weeks ago and it said something about "To enhance your Mazda experience you need to install Service Pack 2." I think it installed. How can you tell if it installed? Anyway, what difference does that make?"

Police Officer/Tow Truck Driver/Insurance Agent/Wife/God: "Never mind. It's a bit late now, isn't it!"

Me: "Ummm… Am I still licensed/insured/married/alive without the update?"

Now bugs can be serious, but that is only half of the story. The thing that they don’t tell you in the brochure is that where there is software, there are viruses. Sooner or later there will be car viruses (if they don't exist already). In fact, I might download the car virus creator kit (the updated version that supports MPS SP2) and start creating a few myself.

I’ll start with the carwash virus. This virus waits until the car is idling in neutral, moving forward slowly and the sensors indicate it’s raining and then winds all the windows down and sounds the horn. Should be very popular with the ladies.

Then I’ll do the roundabout virus - entry and exit strains. The entry strain waits until the car is entering a roundabout from a slow speed with large throttle opening and then sets engine output to 20% for two seconds, then 110% for two seconds while directing all power to the inside front wheel and giving maximum assist to the electric steering. This might help people learn how to drive onto the roundabout smoothly. The exit strain is for those turbo-nutters who are way past help. It waits until the car is doing a full throttle exit from a roundabout and just as the driver starts to unwind lock the virus triggers and engages the handbrake, turns the engine off, turns the hazards on, tunes the stereo to Radio National and turns the seat warmers on high. By the time the car stops the guy will be up to date on the latest book reviews as well as the weather in South America. The hazards are for the amusement of other drivers and the seat warmers will help the police tracker dogs if the driver shits himself.

Cars and computers – this should be a lot of fun.