RFNT - day 3 - 115k

Leaving from the Hotel day 3

Pulled over for this snap

Some of the roads. The cyclo's (6 of us) actually gobbled this sort of stuff up.

One of the guys in the group spotted a large hole a little after this calling out "hole " fairly loudly. Unluckily for him he wasn't listening to himself as he then rode straight into it...

Rooftop bar after ride, left to right  Jonesy, Brad and Snowy .

If I get a chance I'll add to this..

RFNT - Day 2- 123k

Little bit cooler today - but 122k was still plenty!

Spills and thrills.

Hopped on behind the local equivalent of a Jims Mowing guy. His "trailer" of grass behind his motor scooter was perfectly shaped to draft behind.

This sort of terrain was fantastic for cyclo cross and mountain bikes alike 

Jonesy paid his optometrist $15 to adjust his sunnies to his exacting specifications.

One of the group needed to use the facilities. Went into a rest room out the back of a stop. Went inside and the securing of the door involved a string system versus the more traditional lock. Got the door tied down, bib shorts off and it was more your floor level set up. Took care of the next step as quickly as they could manage in the pitch black and 40 degree heat but in an effort to get out of there asap to rejoin the group back in the fresh Cambodian air has cramped pretty badly. After gutsing the cramp out and looking to wrench the door open to get some light, fresh air and freedom the opposite has unfortunately happened pulling the string / pulley system tighter. After some cries for help a local has responded to the SOS, using a carving knife to cut through the string. Good times..

I'm posting this at the end of day 3. There's some quite cool pics on day 3 and scenically the highlight of my trips to Cambodia to date..

Next post is half finished...

RFNT day 1-130k

Well..we know we're back in Cambodia.

Super hot. 

Bit of carnage out there today.

26 riders - bit of a medical unrelated to the ride meant 24 starters.

Hopes were up as forecast was only 33 but wasn't to be and got to 38 and 39 for a lot of arvo.

Some new faces and new characters which,  important cause notwithstanding ,is a large part of the appeal 

There's Aussies, Kiwis, Singaporeans, American (1) , Scottish (1) Dutch, English (2) and South Africans here..how awesome is that when it started with three unpopular Aussies. OK , three tolerable Aussies. 

Apols it took so long to get this up - just got knocked around by the heat and didn't want to get started with a listless post..writing this by the up rooftop bar - Having a Cambodian (beer)and are reasonably confident I'll be back talking a fair bit of shit within the hour! 

A lot of great characters and some little anecdotes starting to compile - this is building people!!!

From the desk of the King 

The day before the day before..

Peoplessssss

At Singapore aeroporto. 

Get to Siem Reap mid to late arvo. Fordys birthday today so it would be foolish to completely write off the possibility of a mid strength frothy tonite.

Not sure who is and isn't there yet but will soon find out. Just Whatapped Jonesy who's unofficially the people's champion. Haven't seen him since a lunch in Subi over a year ago but I'm anticipating he's unlikely to have changed all that much.

It's hot as f here in Sing but in the a/c now so I'm having a coffee as likely won't feel like one for a week or more.

Turning our attention to the riding...

Ok - time to head to the gate and intro myself to the pilot

Stay well and talk soon 

We interrupt our normal transmission..

In a massive quinncidence big Kevvy Nugent of Sneans and chocolate flavoured protein powder notoriety has popped up again on fb today in headlines sure to send a ripple through the Perth fashion set. All that less than 24 hours after getting a mention in one of the top 500 blogs about cycling in Cambodia in September.!

That's the K dog third from the left just daring any casual passer by to try and hold eye contact ..

Ride starts in less than a fortnight..

Less than a fortnight and we'll be well underway, exciting...

Just got back from Melbourne a couple of hours ago ( when I first started drafting this post) Harry's got 71 Pokemon (including some recently sourced Victorian Pokemons.)

 Joey (briefly) snared a rare Pokemon for him during the week (clandestine currying favour , favourite parent type activity ) but it escaped..they've just gone out hunting now..in our house it's been quite a good thing as he's not super big on sport so it gets him out and about under the sky which I'm all for..

Generally speaking I don't drink a lot of pop these days but we stayed with a couple of our closest friends over the weekend in Melbourne and in all the excitement we managed to wrestle a couple down. Whilst we're on the subject of frothies ...

Which leads me rather neatly to some world class lyrics..

All lies and jest

Still a man hears what he wants to hear

And disregards the rest

The Boxer , Simon and Garfunkel

Lie la lie

This exchange rate is killing our donation total - it gets expressed in US dollars which heavily reduces it from the Aussie total - still all dollars are great dollars.

Ok, lots still to do gotta go,  keep it real 

Speaking of keeping it real a mate of mine Kev who some of you will remember got absolutely shredded hoovering down that 40 kilo drum of chocolate protein powder a year or two back put me on to the Sneans site on Facebook. Sneakers and jeans combo - some of the funniest stuff I've read in a long time. 

Now I really do have to go..

< 6 weeks to go til start of Cambodia 2016 - v5

I jumped on to Strava yesterday and saw quite a number of regular early morning riders waited until Sunday afternoon to get out for a ride ( myself included), largely no doubt because it was 4 degrees Sunday morning with the "feels like" comparator quoting 2 degrees. 

Ideal preparation for the 40 degrees odd that'll greet us in five weeks or so.

Big Iain Clarke - my brother in law based in Singapore - gets here on Thursday night. He's gone from 98 kegs or so when he started riding to 84.6. Not dissimilar to the tiny baby bird Brendy story of a few years back. Fordys dropped 10 kegs or so as well. Everybody's shedding weight like its a biggest loser show except old unlucky boy Quinny - I was talking to a couple of ladies at KFC I know very well about it and they reckon it's most likely an underactive thyroid...

Right, I've fact checked a couple of things since my last post. The ride actually started in 2012 not 2011 as I blatantly misled you all about in my previous post and it starts on Monday 5th September not the 4th.

More importantly we've raised over A$500,000 across the four (4) rides so far and the Hospital will be operational very late this year.!!

People can donate at;

http://ridefornokortep.com/donation-page.html

Please enter John Quinn as there's 25 riders and we need to get the allocations reconcilable.

You can also follow us on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/RideForNokorTep

Back shortly.