24 hours till lift off.

Well it's 1 day before I head off to meet up with my cycling buddy Len DeMoss in the Philippines.  We'll be catching the plane to Cambodia on the 5 March and arriving back in Manilla on the 22 April 2013.

Recently I had my bike overhauled with new XT Shimano brakes.  The AVIDS I had on were terrible.  Riding in extreme heat would cause the brake fluid to expand and my brakes would come on making riding impossible.  I was advised by a good friend Luke Dale that this was common with this brand of brakes.

The new brakes are fantastic and I have to thank Spearman Cycles of Wollongong who did the work in such short time.  You will see from my earlier trip that Spearman Cycles is a proud supporter of Vision Impaired cyclists of the Illawarra and eXsight Tandems.

If you ever need professional service when buying a bike or repairing your old rust bucket, go and see David or Ryan.  But don't tell them I sent you.

Don't forget to hit the paypal button and make a small donation to eXsight Tandems.  Keeping the tandems on the road costs money, our total insurance for all tandems is close to $1500.

Last day of riding with eXsight Tandems for a couple of months.

This is Ralph, one of the Captains.

Today we rode from Sutherland to Wollongong with eXsight Tandems.  We had about 6 tandems out on the road and a member riding her own bike.  We had a great ride stopping at the famous Bald Hill.  This is one of my major training areas.  We ride up this mountain each week and then ride back into Wollongong.

Having a stop looking down to Wollongong on the south coast of New South Wales.

So, after a nice hard ride we ended up at Ruby's coffee shop where many stories were told as to who was the best tandem riders on the day.  I think I came last, but I blame the lazy bloke on the back for that.  

Another week of training and I'm off.

Work is over and it's time to go for a ride.

Well, my last day of work is Friday 22 February 2013 and it's time to get my act together for the next bicycle journey.

The next port of call will be Manila, Philippines.  I'll be meeting up with one of my good friends from the Cairo to Capetown 2011 cycle tour, Mr Len DeMoss.  Len and Colin started their tour on the 10 Jan this year and have ridden all over the Philippines, dodging trucks, buses, motorbikes, trikes and dogs.

After harassing Len with far too many emails we've decided to change our route and head for Cambodia.

We'll spend a couple of days in Manila and then catch a flight to Siem Reap and start our holiday.  Yeh, riding a bike and cooking your ass is a holiday to me.   The weather should be warm and humid, but at least we'll have a safer ride.

We intend to head up north and enter Thailand and then hopefully into Laos.  We should reach northern Thailand and then start the slow ride back to Cambodia for the flight back to Manila.  We'll have 2 months this trip, and we should have a blast.

The new bike is ready, my legs are ready.  So follow my story as one Aussie and a yank go on tour.