Friday Five: Bent Spoke

Hurrah for the new pub in town! After many months of hard work, design concepts and brewing business, the Bent Spoke Brewery is open. Richard Watkins and Tracy Margrain were exhausted and ecstatic in equal measure as the pints were pulled and the punters imbibed last week. 

Him Outdoors has worked on some electrical stuff in the building, so we got to go along for the contractors night, the night before the official opening night. The beer was great and the ambiance was fabulous. I can see this becoming a new favourite watering home in Braddon.

 

The concept is generally that it is all about the beer; there are large panes of glass in front of the tanks, so the punters can see the provenance of what they're drinking. The vats and tanks are gleaming steel and marry form, function and industrial design. 

Along with the malt sacks on the walls and the manufacturing manual mural, other softening aspects include the amount of timber throughout the bar. We spoke to the chap responsible for the wood (from Thor's Hammer) and he told us the bars and table tops are made from Blackbutt and Spotted Gum, recycled from the Q Store Woolstores, while the doors, stair treads and ceiling panels are from roof house timbers, lightly sanded. We also love the tap handles, which are hand crafted from off-cuts of different wood and each one is uniquely matched to the style of beer.

And there are many cycling references, from the names of some of the beers, to the light fittings made from recycled chain rings and other bike parts.

The food is pretty appetising also, with plates of nibbles to enhance the beer-drinking pleasure. I am relatively reliably informed that the wings and wedges are encrusted with the beer grains used in the brewing process, which I think is a great idea (and a great taste too)!

Of course, as previously mentioned, it is all about the beer, and in the near future, discerning drinkers will be able to take their favourite pints home in handy two-litre flagon things for take-outs. They look like stylish thermos flasks and are aerated via the type of valve more often seen on a bicycle pump. 

5 Beers at the Bent Spoke Brewery:

1. Barley Griffin - a cloudy, malty ale which reminded me of pizza dough. I couldn't think why until I saw that it is made with the addition of oregano.
2. Crankshaft - a very hoppy IPA packed with lots of lovely American and citrus hops.
3. Mort's Gold - I didn't try this one, which is apparently a crisp and hoppy pilsner. I was driving and so limited in my tastings, but there's always next time...
4. Dick Tracy - a fruity, nutty Belgo-inspired brown ale, with a lovely mashed up nomenclature.
5. Braddon Bitter - hand-pumped bitter; it's made with Aussie ingredients but had an essentially English flavour - my favourite!

Friday Five: Child's Play

The Bible tells us that when you are a child you speak as a child and understand as a child, but when you become a man, you put away childish things. I’m not so sure. I prefer the bit about there being a season for everything and a time for every purpose – “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” etc. And I think that the time to be childish and play with games does not finish with childhood.

I recently bought my nephew some Lord of the Rings LEGO (sorry if he hasn’t already opened his present, but he’ll know soon enough…) with a little Gandalf, a hobbit and a horse and cart. One of the pictures on the box showed Gandalf feeding the noble steed a carrot, which was bigger than the horse’s head – it was all I could do to wrap up the box without tearing it open for a quick play. I loved LEGO as a kid, and it seems I still do.

It made me think about my favourite toys as a child. Of course, there were the cuddly animals who went everywhere with me – they were great companions and could be dressed up and made to play all sorts of games. They were often lined up in front of a blackboard while I taught them stuff. I’m not sure I was a very good teacher because I definitely had favourites who got most questions right (little swats) and some who were very thick and had to be beaten with the bamboo cane to improve their learning ability – yes, I’m afraid this was the 70s.

Some of them remain in my old room at my parents’ house, some are in a box in the attic and some have travelled around the world with me. There is a scene at the end of The House at Pooh Corner, in which Christopher Robin must go to school that breaks my heart. “But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing.”

Books were my other great love, and I disappeared into them for hours and then made up adventures and stories of my own to play – they were fantastic for imagination and literacy development, but I’m not sure they can be counted as toys. The games I played (either with friends or aforementioned cuddly animals) were interactive, but the books themselves weren’t.

When it was the last day of term at school, people brought in board games to play – do they still do that, or is the whole of schooling just one long doss these days? Others had Buckaroo or Operation. I used to like Monopoly but the game usually lasted for hours and ended up in tears and tantrums (when Dad said we had been ganging up on him. He was right, we had). For some reason I was never a fan of Scrabble or Cluedo – too much unnecessary speculation resulting in frustration.

I liked Guess Who, although I didn’t have my own version and it took me a while to work out the right questions to ask. (“Is it third from the left in the second front row?”) I had a game called Headache which I loved. I used to draw up tournaments between all my cuddly toys (which went from group stages to knock out rounds) and play it for hours in my bedroom. I think it was the Pop-o-matic bubble in the centre of the board that held most appeal.

I went through a cards phase as a teenager, although I didn’t really know any games except gin rummy, whist and patience. I used to play Racing Demon with Our Gracious Hostess and her sister in a furious frenzy when I was meant to be doing my homework. It got pretty raucous and her parents tried to ban us from playing it, which meant that we just did it more – oh what fun we had ‘but at the time it seemed so bad...’ Well, we were hardly sniffing glue or nicking cars were we?

I had a couple of dolls, but mainly I liked their accessories. Sindy had a horse and a tent, so she could go riding or camping. When my sisters were at big school and I wasn’t yet, they very kindly made me a whole set of school books and a uniform for her – I think they made a hockey stick and PE kit as well – which was wonderful, but they wouldn’t actually play any games with her (or me, for that matter).

My brother ‘played’ with me – by which I mean that he threw my cuddly toys down the stairs (or out of the window) claiming they had found a secret passage. He would wait until I had gone down to collect them and returned upstairs again before he threw the next one down. It was hours of entertainment – for him.

I also remember a game in which we ‘raced’ cars along the hallway. This involved hurling the toy vehicles as far as we could along the carpet until they thudded into the skirting board (sorry, Dad). We raced them in pairs and, again, I drew up a knock-out tournament. The ambulance was pretty good, although the articulated lorry was crap, especially when it was carrying plastic pipes.

And then there was the stuff we did outdoors: playing football, shooting the netball, whacking a tennis ball against the side of the house, skipping (both ‘normal’ with a rope and French with knicker elastic), rollerskating along the footpath, and batting a shuttlecock back and forth with Our Gracious Hostess. We had favourite shuttlecocks and always tried harder with those ones so they could win the tournament – I think there may be a theme developing...

And I loved my bike. Mum always said ‘Stay where I can see you’ but she wasn’t actually watching. I rode my bike up and down the kerb a lot (sorry, Dad) and once Our Gracious Hostess rode hers into the river and I had to sneak home and find some dry clothes for her to change into while she hid in the bushes so her parents would never know. Yep, we were dangerous. Our man in London says we used to ride round and round the green cackling in a terrifying manner, but I don’t believe it (the cackling bit).

So, I guess if I had to sum it up (and I really should), this would be it.

5 Favourite Childhood ‘Toys’:

1. Cuddly toys
2. Books
3. Board Games
4. Cards
5. The Great Outdoors

Scorching Bay Triathlon - Workplace Challenge

As the alarm goes off at 6am on Sunday after four hours of sleep and three heavy nights (it was the Sevens after all) my thoughts are less than charitable – ‘whose stupid idea was it to enter the workplace challenge triathlon?’ I grumble. The fact that it was my suggestion doesn’t make it any more palatable.

I eat my two slices of toast and honey (which is a bit of a ritual before a race) and wait for another of my team member to arrive while blearily watching the football. Liverpool are 0-0 with Portsmouth at half-time. (They go on to a thrilling 3-2 victory away from home, so that cheers me up when I watch the second half later.)

When I start to wonder why she hasn’t arrived, I check my cell phone which bleeps jauntily that she will meet me at transition – I must have got my wires crossed, or definitely blurred!

I cram on my helmet and shoes (my feet are swollen from dancing all night in high heeled boots – well, England won the Sevens!) and leap onto my bike to pedal to the start. What a day! The wind barely ruffles the harbour, although it is steadily building, and the sun is out strong already. Today will certainly be a day to slip, slop, slap, and wrap, or whatever other non-alliterative words have been added to the slogan.

My team are there at the start as I rack my bike among the other trusty steeds waiting patiently for the long course – sorry, I get a bit carried away when talking about my bike. I love my bike. We have team photos. There are two of our workplace teams – a girl team (called ‘Don’t Give Up Your Day Job’)


and a boy team (called ‘The Fit, the Fat, and the Frog).

Our fearless swimmer is clad merely in togs. She is nuts. Or maybe, just German. Last night as I partied hard in Courtenay Place with some Morris Dancers and the Cookie Monster, a tiny voice in the back of my mind was telling me to go home and get some rest. A couple of pints of Epic silenced it without too many problems, but I knew our fearless swimmer would be safely tucked up in bed. She was.

Their fearless swimmer is not looking too keen. He too was at the Sevens, and he too thinks this is a ridiculous idea, but at least he is wearing a wetsuit. There is some nervous standing about at the water’s edge, and then they’re off, splashing about in the water and hunting down those orange buoys. The wind is picking up and things start bobbing in the water.

Our fearless swimmer does a great time and she sprints dripping up into the transition where she hands over to me and I set out on my trip around the bays. Their fearless swimmer emerges from the water a short while later so I have to try and maintain the gap between us.

Of course, the wind is strong now – particularly heading past the airport at Lyall Bay – and I know this will be even worse on my return. People come whistling past me and the medium course turn around (at 10km) looks very tempting. I briefly consider whether anyone would notice if I didn’t plough on up the hill and stopped for a coffee instead. But this would be cheating, and even if I feel terrible, I do not cheat.

I start grinding up the hill and my mind wonders off somewhere, only to be startled and alarmed when I find I have fallen into the gutter by the side of the road and can’t get back out. Ouch. I bump to a standstill. Bumping and grinding, but it’s not that much fun and I have knocked the speed and distance counter doodacky out of kilter. I’m embarrassed more than hurt as I dust myself off and try to get going again – uphill into a headwind – and find it’s hard to get enough pressure to clip into my pedals.

I concentrate for the rest of the way round and although people hurtle past on the way down as well (I am such a womble going downhill) and the wind is buffeting me off my bike on the way back, I make it to the transition in one piece. I hand over to our fearless runner and she skips off looking fresh and sprightly and not at all as though she was sinking pints in the pub last night.

Crazy frog is right behind and his fearless runner sets off in hot (and I do mean hot – that wind is doing nothing to reduce the temperature) pursuit. Their team is the fit, the fat and the frog – and as he is French, I’m guessing that he is the latter of the trio. His first words on dismount are, ‘My bottom is sore!’ but he has done a great job.

He hands over to their fearless runner, who (as an ex-army dude) is racing in tracksters. It is so hot that he will come to regret that later. The run is two laps, so we see them both come and go out and back and out and then back again – hurrah! Our team wins so there are even more hurrahs, but we can afford to be gracious in victory.

I realise that our teams combined comprise Team Europe. Of the six people from our workplace who accepted this challenge, not a one is a Kiwi – aren’t they meant to be a healthy sporting nation? There is a coffee queue for miles at the café on the front, and not a single one of our sextet collects a spot prize, but we go back to mine where Him Outdoors has cooked a massive fry-up so we all feel like winners.

The wind is now more than a stiff breeze and the sailboats are zipping across the bay. As we stretch out on the sofas and drink cups of tea we congratulate ourselves on our efforts. We are saying nicer things about the race now than we did this morning, but everyone is still wary about committing to the next one!

If you're interested in things like results, check them out here.

Lake Taupo Challenge

This is another interruption to the Italy reminisces, because last weekend we went up to Taupo for the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge. It is a fabulous event and really well organised (there are over 10,000 cyclists in one event!), but the registration area before the race is pretty intimidating. Queues of people shuffle like sheep following arrows to pick up drink bottles and bananas. Hundreds of hyped-up cyclists talk nonsense and we run away as soon as we can. I am doing a relay leg so I have to hand my bike over. It is to be racked on the back of a trailer and guarded by security before being taken to the changeover point. I can only hope I will see it tomorrow.

Meanwhile the maxi-enduro riders are already out on the course. These nutters circumnavigate the lake four times past the signs they will come to despise – ‘hills, glorious hills’; ‘You’re going to love this hill’; ‘New seat next year’. They wear pink helmets to signify their status which are faintly ridiculous, but I guess if they can put up with cycling 640km, they can put up with looking like a prat.

Driving back to National Park where we’re staying for the night, Him Outdoors notes nonchalantly, ‘It’s a big lake’. We follow cars bristling with bikes past signs warning motorists to take a break if they’re sleepy and that there are going to be 1,000s of cyclists ahead so to expect delays.

*****

On the morning of the race we have a very early start. I am not good in the mornings and 5am is not a time I’m familiar with. Even so, the boys nearly miss their start – which is arranged depending on the time in which you expect to complete the race. They abandon the car and ride to the start line leaving me to try and park it somewhere in the packed little town with closed roads and detours.

I clip clop to the bus loading area in my bike shoes – this particular footwear was definitely not made for walking and my feet are soon cramped and pinched. People are chatting and wishing each other luck for their up-coming ride; it's a great atmosphere and everyone is looking forward to their day out.

The bus to Tihoi (the changeover for leg 2 – my leg) turns up and I scramble aboard. Years of elbowing my way to a seat on the school coach have clearly paid off as I get onto the first bus – who says my education was wasted? Unfortunately we don’t leave any earlier and sit breathing in diesel fumes for half an hour - that'll teach me to be so pushy! There is a lot of nervous energy and excitement as people laugh and joke and make new friends.

When we are finally in motion we pass a load of riders struggling up the hills. The girl next to me sees her team-mate and starts to panic that she won’t arrive at the transition area in time. She does.



At the transition I manage to get to the portaloo before the queue stretches around the field. It is hot and there is plenty of water and sun cream on offer. I collect my bike, which thankfully made it in one piece. I just hope the tyres don’t explode in the heat, although everything else seems fine. The crew on racking and un-racking duty do a great job and the bikes are all lined up waiting for their riders. At the end of each leg, the bikes are taken off you and returned to the start/finish as if by magic. It's like having your own personal ostler/valet/whater-the-cycling-equivalent-may-be.

I have no idea when our first leg riders started or how long we expect them to take. I am in one of the relay teams sponsored by Kone, where Him Outdoors works and I only met my fellow riders last night. I am in the originally-named Team Kone 2 and I wait patiently with the person who is doing the same leg for Team Kone 1.

The transition area is merry chaos, with no one knowing where they are meant to be handing over or waiting for their incoming rider. There is no official mount or dismount line and people ride around the paddock calling out the name and number of their team-mate. To their credit, all the crew and waiting riders hlep out and there is a chorus of cycling calls - David Attenborough would have a field day.

The first rider from Team Kone 1 arrives having completed a fabulous leg. Our rider is not far behind – he says he has done no training but he has youth on his side and you can do anything when you’re 18. I set off in hot pursuit.

Once I’m on the bike, I really enjoy the ride. It has been described as undulating but this is a euphemism – I would call it hilly. I’m good on the flat but unfortunately there isn’t any – it’s just straight up and down and Waihaha Hill is far from amusing. I overtake people going up hill and they fly past me on the way down. I descend like a womble and use my brakes far too much, but I’m scared of coming off and my imagination runs riot as to just how much I could injure myself.

I get one little glimpse of the lake, shimmering in the distance – for a round the lake ride, there are very few times when the riders actually see it and it's a welcome sight when they do. There is also a lot of litter on the road for a supposedly eco-friendly event. Some of the drink bottles and energy bar wrappers have been dropped by accident, but some have been tossed away to the roadside by riders deliberately shedding excess ballast.

The road is packed with cyclists of all shapes and sizes in gleaming lycra. There are crap riders on good bikes and vice versa, by which I mean good riders on crap bikes, not good bikes on crap riders. Some riders chat to each other and random strangers. Some like it; some don’t. One girl has ‘talk to me’ written on her calves in felt-tip pen, so I guess she does. It's like a festival on wheels.

I’m surprised the roads aren’t closed. There is some real muppet driving in evidence. One farmer hurtles past in his combine harvester – why does he have to do it today? That’s farmers for you; ‘Get orf my land!’ I see several near misses and a couple of ambulances screech by.

There is some shocking cycling too – some of these people clearly have no idea how to cycle in bunches and have yet to discover on which left they are meant to ride. A bloke riding with aero bars (never a good idea in a crowd) tucks into my kidneys to draft off me – if you’re so skilled at cycle technique; what are you doing back here? It's all generally pedalled in good spirits though.

I am quite pleased with my ride of 1:40 and I come in before the other team. Their leg three rider complains, ‘Damn, I wanted at least a ten minute lead into this leg to have any chance of holding him off.’ I try to look apologetic.

Our rider is on an old dunger of a bicycle which he found in his garage the day before. He has dusted off the cobwebs and raised the seat from a couple of decades ago and it’s almost as good as new. Despite the fact that his pedal falls off three kilometres from the end of his ride, he does a phenomenally fast time and helps us to a Team Kone victory. Our fourth leg rider enjoys his outing alongside the lake and later when we’re all contesting who had the most difficult section, he quietly admits that his was probably the most pleasant.

Back at Taupo I try and hunt for Him Outdoors who has not got his cell phone and will have no idea where I have parked the car. I look for him in the obvious places but he is not in any of the pubs. Neither is he at the finish; where the buses are meant to be dropping off their passengers; or in the food and drink tent.

How on earth did we cope before cell phones – I suppose we made plans in advance and actually stuck to them; how quaint! I find myself humming, ‘What Would Brian Boitano Do?’ as I wince about in pinching shoes and muggy heat for an hour. I go to the place where my bike is meant to be returned. It isn’t there yet, but I bump into Him Outdoors by accident. He has blitzed his previous time by twenty minutes so is pretty pleased with himself.

All is forgiven. The Guinness helps. The black magic is, well, magic and revives us all. The rest of the relay folk go back to National Park for a barbeque but we hang about for the prize-giving; we might win a car as a spot prize! There are so many people and food tents it resembles a mini-music festival, but without the bands.

The ride is advertised as the Round Lake Taupo Challenge and the organisers insist it is not a race. People I speak to disagree; ‘You’ve come to race. Why else would you pull on a number?’ ‘Any rider who trains three times a week has a competitive nature. Events that pretend they are not races try to batter that spirit out of people. This is a depressing state for the future of New Zealand sport.’ Of course it is a challenge - and an achievement for everyone who completes their section, but you are also competing - whether against yourself; the clock; the weather; your peers. Competition does not have to be aggressive and it is not a dirty word.

We meet a bloke covered in supporter stickers – he has done the race several times before but had a heart attack three months ago and was warned against it this year on doctor’s orders. He has taken on the highly important role of support crew instead. Spectators mill about the finish chute, urging on those who are still struggling home. The big sun reflected in the still lake makes a fantastic vista but I doubt they’re looking at it.

Everyone is welcomed home with applause, but the biggest cheers are reserved for tandems, children and enduro riders. One child goes by on a bike with stabilisers. He sprints to the finish line to try and beat his friends. I don’t think they would agree with the non-competitive aspect either.

We don’t win the car – some 15 year old does – but Him Outdoors does get a tin of gloss paint. He actually came 66th in his division and 213th overall (out of 4738). The New Zealand air force put on a show and we all ooh and aah at the loop-the-loops and crossovers. There are a lot of tired but happy people lying about on the grass or moving in slow and slightly odd ways. We spot friends from Wellington – he used clip-in-pedals for the first time and now he can’t move his feet.

Back at base we finish our night with beers and made-up awards – our support crew have organised prizes for the sublime; ‘fastest time’ to the ridiculous; ‘best nuts in lycra’. One of the solo riders has brought his guitar – not only can he play fantastically well; he also has a great line in cover versions from The Sex Pistols, David Bowie, The Ramones and The Who.

Him Outdoors gets stuck into the whisky and coke with another solo rider (‘Don’t tell my clients; I’m a personal trainer’) while I decide now is a good time to wash off the layers of sun cream and sweat and crawl into my sleeping bag.

N.B. Names withheld to protect the clueless

Long Weekend highlights

It is Labour Day here today, so here are the highlights from my long weekend:

• Friday night drinks in the Malthouse - Yeastie Boys' Pot Kettle Black is on tap - Him Outdoors and I have a couple of pints each but it is now sold out. Sam and Stu have diligently gone to Invercargill to brew some of their latest release - to be called Golden Boy. I'll let you know as soon as I hear it's available, or check out their blog link above.
• In the interests of keeping the holiday alive for as long as possible, we visit the Mediterranean Food Warehouse in Newtown. Not only can you get fantastic pizza (made in their wood-fired pizza oven), coffee, and gelati here, but you can stock up on a great range of pasta, olives, and chianti - we can keep eating the food even if we can't enjoy the culture.
• The weather was rubbish so we got a video out and curled up on the sofa to watch Michael Clayton, a really enjoyable Saturday night film. George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson and Sydney Pollack are excellent - Tilda Swinton won an Oscar for best supporting actress and the film garnered another six nominations (in the top categories). It's a fabulous suspense drama and may sneak its way into my top 10 favourite films, but what would I leave out?
• Despite the fact that the weather was still appalling, the hardy souls at the Waitangi Park Market were still selling their fresh produce. We battled with the wind and filled our canvas bags with courgettes, carrots, eggs, peppers, asparagus, lettuce, leeks, broccoli, spring onions and ginger for $20. We get to be healthy, green and smug all at the same time.
• Went to visit my siter and her family for my nephew's first birthday. My other nephew has just learned to ride his bike without stabilisers and he was anxious to show off his abilities, so we went to the park to see his new-found talent. I remember riding a bike as one of those childhood achievements up there with swimming my first length in a pool and singing my first solo for the school choir. I also remeber my bike-riding progress was hindered somewhat due to the 'help' of my brother. Anyway, my nephew has no such hindrance and he's a little dynamo on wheels whizzing about underneath his safety helmet.
• Our cat is starting to forgive us for going away for a month and is back to being as normal as it is possible for a pedigree Burmese to be, pouncing on our feet, curling up on our bed at night and purring. We missed him and it's good to have him back. Cats are what make a house a home and he makes our little flat into his own feline palace.
• It was worth getting up in the middle of the night to see Liverpool beat Chelski at the Bridge. The Mighty Reds are now at the top of the table where they belong; long may it continue. I know I say this every year, but I really think this could be our season.
• Not letting the name put me off, with my huge aversion to hills, we walked up Mt Climie in the Rimutakas. It's a pretty steep slog up a 4WD track (It's 860m and you start at 200m - the track is 6km so you can work out the incline if you can be arsed), but the views from the top are worth the effort. You can see out to the South Island - including the highest mountain in the Inland Kaikoura Range, Tapuae-O-uenuku which is capped with snow - and back the other way over the Wairarapa. It's sweaty on the way up, massively windy up the top, and I fall in a bog on the way down and lose both of my shoes, but it's actually a good day out - although I daren't mention this to Him Outdoors, or he'll make me do it again.