48kms of dirt.

Easter Friday finally came around and so I joined the BMU guys for an extra long extended loop at loftus. 800 meters in Matt managed to get a flat on his new Fargo, a long few minutes after I managed to get a flat on my rear Exiwolf, an hour after that I got yet another flat on the Exiwolf on Lady carrington drive near waterfall. I believe that the 1.95 exiwolf just doesn't hold a sufficient volume of air to protect me from pinch flats. My plan now is to put a Race King on the front and back for next weeks dirt works.

Clocked up 49kms just shy of 50 and it wasn't that bad despite my legs lacking power I still managed to push through it just past being comfortable.

So next week is Dirtworks, 100kms in one hit, can i make it? Damn right I'll make it, I don't care if I hit "the wall" and start eating into my muscles for fuel! I'll be damn sure ride the full 100kms!!

Hi there spidey!

I seem to find myself quite amused at taking photos of insects, namely spiders. Not too sure why. This one didn't mind being blinded by my highbeams nor did it move when I moved in closer. Quite glad about that actually.

Grab Your Fork - Why do I blog.

"Why do I blog?

Personally I find it a happy intersection of my three favourite passions: food, writing and photography. My Chinese background has meant that good food has always been sought out and appreciated, a food-centric culture where fish is always eaten whole, where the best meat is on the bone, and no yum cha is complete without at least one order of chicken feet."

Snippet taken from Grab Your Fork, read the whole article titled "To blog or not to blog" here.

GYF has got to be one of my most favourite food bloggers out there. The way she writes, the photos she posts and also the diversity of all the amazing foods she ventures out to taste.

The recent article she wrote for the second issue of Gourmet Rabbit about food blogging is really just a FAQ about her blogging career. It just highlights her passion for foods, travels and words really. An article that just made my day, I'm amused reading it, tilting my head with a smile and almost nodding at her words.

I wish i did blog more about good foods, but time and people constrict me. But lately I have been cooking a fair bit more, maybe I should further awaken the foodie in me and blog about them too! Ah but I get too excited making I gobble it up before I even get a chance to take my camera out.

Track day!!

So today I went to Wakefield. This would be my first time ever taking my car to the track and the first time I have ever tracked a car. And this was our lineup, Cliftons Sportivo, Will's Imprezza, my sp23, Zi's Civic type R and Justin's R32.

It was also Clifton's first time at the track with the sportivo. Lowered springs and triangle tyres made for a super fun day for him.

Justin's Skyline R32 is just immaculate and was just in a league of his own punching out 1min 10sec laps. Also with Zi's encouragement he managed to push it into the 1.09's!!! Crazy!

Zi's Type R. Good car to my standards but to be honest I don't know any better, lol. This was apparently Zi's first time taking such a heavy and slow car to wakefield. He still thrashed me!!!

My sp23. Nothing special really.

I did take out my rear seats, space saver tyres and anything else that was dead weight just to make the most of today. Yes I felt super silly and it was so worth it! (laughs all round).

Did it make any difference? Nothing I could notice in power or speed but it did allow for alot more road noise, slightly annoying driving there but it did help while I was on the track. Allowing me to hear my ever so quiet engine rev.

My first session out there was quite daunting and scary actually. Not know what to expect, no driver briefing and I didn't even know what my car was capable till now. I was too busy just trying to keep my car on the road, I created quite a traffic jam because of that! Sorry to the guys who I held up but it all good, although there was a mini cooper out there that was just crazy! I honestly didn't know what to do when it came near, overtaking on the insides, going all over the place and funnily enough it was the smallest care there but it was definitely the loudest.

The second session I was out there it was definitely much better. I took on all the advice I was told, instead of being conservative and modulating the brakes and throttle on the track just mash it! Brake hard (like really hard to the point where the ABS kicks in) and then through the corner just have your foot flat on the ground! To me it sounded so crazy at first but in reality it works and you're just so much faster.

The track was super chilled and as the day went on there was a one car less here and there so every lap I was out there on I was definitely changing something about my driving. Justin said that by the end of the day I was driving great using the whole width of the track and just flooring it! It's funny though, while going through the corners I have every intention to hit every apex fast but when it got around to it no matter how hard I tried I could only just buzz the apex ever so slightly.

That infamous "Fish hook" in wakefield was just a nightmare of fun. So much under-steer, I don't think I ever managed to tackle that corner correctly without Justin showing me the line. But man it was such an experience to feel the car sliding out so much at such speeds! In the last session we were out there I did manage let the slide out too far out and loose complete control of the car and do a 360 spin amazingly dangerous but surprisingly safe. lol There was no one behind me (lucky) and the sand off the track is very nice to spin out on and not feel like the car will roll over.

Justin let me use the track timer for 2 sessions but only got a valid time out of 4 laps, in my last session someone took the transponder beacon down and so our laps wasn't recorded but that's ok! My fastest recorded lap, 1min 20.9 secs!!! Quite proud of that actually but I think, give me another day and I'll smash it again!

So in between while we let our cars cool down, we just chill and then Zi got out some tape and started mucking about.
I'm no. 2!!

Then I gave Will some racing stripes!! lol!!
So with a bit of highway driving, and absolute hammering of my throttle I still managed to get 500km's out of one tank, cool!

Also, I was super sleepy, micro sleeping badly and famished. I ate my first Big mac meal for the first time in about 5ish years. Burgers are smaller than what they use to be and still taste the same.

Shoot to Thrill

SHOOT to THRILL from Claudio Giambusso on Vimeo.

Do you remember the first matrix movie where they had this one specific scene of Neo dodging bullets in super slow mo.

Well this is just another rad video showing you just one method of achieving such a shot.

The Mont 2011

Friday night, 3 Thules, 3 bikes, 1 Calzone and 1 destination.

The rego tent, getting our teams race plates and also our bag of freebies!

So this year a legislation had past where all riders had to have their helmet check for defects and also Australian or international safety standard stickers. Unfortunately my helmet the Bell sweep was purchased online from CRC in Europe. So no stickers for me, but because Clifton has the same helmet I do know the sweep does pass the safety standards. So with some help, I got my sticker that tells the race officials my helmet is safe.

Click to enlarge.

Just a panoramic shot of the main sort of transition area, I tried to capture the feel of how many campers/riders were here but i failed.

I wasn't in much of a picture taking mood, nor am I in much of a blogging mood either right now. Slightly bit disappointed, possibly tired and just not feeling 100%.

I was the first man up again, the run was terribly painful, that first firetrail was painful and the dust was intense (not as bad as last year though). The track was great I quite enjoyed it! No crazy lung busting climbs nice flow in the single trails, people were commenting on the developing ruts in the trail but I honestly didn't mind at all.

The track was so damn dusty that made me re-lube my chain after every lap! I managed to push out 4 laps. I wish I had pushed out more, but my spirits was quite crushed when someone in my team decided to call quits. He only did 2 laps but his fitness is quite different to others, I just would of appreciated it if he pushed himself past that mental barrier.

The rain kicked in at about 7am, our last recorded lap was at about 3am and we left the camping grounds by about.. 10am. When it started to rain and i saw the BOM forcast I honestly thought the race would be called off soon because the rain would make things terribly dangerous and it may have a race there was not titles at stake. But I was wrong, I should of just got up and changed and harden the fuck up.

Lessons learnt from this year's mont.

• I need ride a lot more.
• My camping gear is still very inefficient
• You can never bring too much clothes for events like this.
• Team mates needs to be thought about a bit more.

Nick Vujicic, No Arms, No Legs, No Worries!

So this would be a sort of a sequel to my previous blog post The Butterfly Circus.

Nick Vujicic is truly an inspiration to all. I admire him and most importantly I believe in the same principles, morals and beliefs as he does. Be thankful for what you have and don't look back on what isn't. Learn from your mistakes, take them, embrace them and then grow from it.

I like to live by a life of no regrets. Despite my past mistakes, falls and failures I don't look back at what could of been but instead I take a step back and say to myself that I'm grateful for what had happened. If it was not for those moments in life I would not become the man I am today. I'm grateful that I have a family, I am thankful for I have a roof over my head, I am also very much content with my friends, my education, the very air we breathe and anything else in between.

I would like to express myself more on how to live life but university calls for study and also preparation for this weekends event. The Mont24.

But in the meantime, if you have some time to kill I must recommend you watch "The Butterfly Circus" which stars Nick Vujicic.

Link here

Alexandra Wallace

Alexandra Wallace has since closed her youtube account, made numerous public apologies and has dropped out of UCLA.

I know that in the world not everyone is the smartest cookie or the nicest. But it still amazes me how some people can take it the next extreme and think's its ok to do so. Apparently while the video was going viral, before she received numerous death threats she had plans to start a series of video blogs that continues her rants about the asian community.

Yeah, she may be dumb but in a way i do hope she is doing ok (as much as I despise her). I hope that she has learnt a lesson from this and that she is still able to lead a normal life. But I do foresee her future to be very difficult with her digital footprint forever embedded into the internet.

Despite my pity, here are in my opinion the funniest responses on youtube about this situation.