Here’s hoping that gastro has a 3 day incubation period, not 2. …. Aussie Nationals T-Bar!

The next round of the Australian National Mountain Bike Series is on this weekend at Toowoomba (or T-bar).

I’ve entered in the Cross Country race, which is on Saturday. I’ve never ridden the XC tracks there before, so am excited to have a crack.

Gastro Baby

But, on Wednesday night, baby Z started vomiting at 1am. After a change of sheets and clothes, he went back to sleep. Only to do it again at 4am, then again at 6am.. You get the gist.


By Friday he was fine. So, if gastro has a 3 day incubation period, then I should get it on Saturday night. Which is great as it means I can still race on Saturday!. But if it hits me on Friday night, then it will be all over.

Today I had the chance to pre-ride the track. Thanks to my mum for looking after Baby Z and Miss T!!

I organised the three kids to get the eldest to school and the other two to my mums. I could smell poo…. I figured it was baby Z needing a nappy change. Yep he sure did. But it had actually exploded out his nappy and onto my top and onto my pants. Awesome. Then it went all over the floor… So I had to clean all that up before I even got out the house for the 2 hour ride to the track. Exhausting…


The track is awesome. Some tricky uphill sections, with fast fun downhills.

Car Troubles

Along with the gastro baby, we also have problems with our cars. Yes that’s right, both of our cars.!

Our 4WD has a broken accelerator. Apparently something has snapped and it means you can’t push the pedal properly as it just hits the floor. So it means a slow and sluggish drive. It will cost $600 to fix it and they have to send it away somewhere. ARGH. So todays 2 hour drive was painful and my leg is sore from pushing so hard on the accelerator.

The other car also has problems. But I can’t fit my bike in there easily anyway. Plus the back seat smells like spew and it looks like this:
No cover on the car seat. Means no baby can sit in it until the cover is clean and dry.

So, stay tuned to see how I fair tonight and tomorrow for the race!




This post contains affiliate links.

Tags: Australian National Mountainbiking, Riding while breastfeeding, Riding with kids, Sleep deprived racing

The weather is getting warming and we all want to ride our bikes.

I love to ride and race, but I am also a mum to three kids.

As a bike-loving Mummy, I am very excited that the time has come where we can all ride our bikes together! The organisation and effort required to get three kids and their bikes, helmets, shoes, food and water out of the house can be quite an exhausting process. With planning and organisation it is achievable.

When can you all ride together?

Once your kids are about one year old, you can start to go on family rides, with the baby in a bike seat or a trailer.

Once they are about two years old, they can ride by themselves, or sit in the bike trailer.

I was lucky enough to experience our first family ride as a family of five on the weekend.

Our youngest baby is 11 months old and can hold his own head up long enough to sit in the baby seat.

We have a Mini Yepp, which mounts on the front of the bike. You can buy them from 99 Bikes (click here) and Pushys (click here).

We also have a trailer, but found that when our other kids sat in it and were too young, they would flop sideways or pull off their helmets. So you’d always be looking behind you to check on them while riding. The Mini Yepp solves that problem. If you are keen on a trailer though, both 99 bikes (click) and Pushys (click) sell them.

Master F is five, and he has a 18 inch BYK bike, Miss T is three and she rides a First Bike balance bike (and a hand me down pedal bike, but the balance bike is much easier on family rides). We managed a flat ride of about 5 km and it took about 1 hour.

The rides aren’t fast and there are often crashes, tears and a lot of band-aids.

Organising all our bike stuff

Prior to having kids our garage provided a home to 15 bikes. Each of them lovingly cleaned, maintained and stored.

Since having kids, our riding time has diminished, and so has the number of our bikes. But instead of creating more room in the garage, we actually have more stuff. Each of the kids have bikes of their own and helmets, gloves, camelbaks etc.


Photo: Our storage solution and helmets on the garage wall.


Photo: Our riding camelbaks hanging on the wall.

To make it easier to find everyones bike gear, I mounted the helmets on the wall with containers underneath for gloves, spare tubes, tyre levers etc.

Bike shoes are stored on the shelf. I put hooks up for our camelbaks and the kids safety vests. The bikes are stored on the wall and on bike stands. All the gear needed to ride is easy to see and find. Finding the kids is a little more difficult…



This post contains affiliate links.

Tags: Riding with kids, Organising bike gear

This is my first online review. So, I did what any good researcher does…. I found the ACCC guidelines for online reviews (https://www.accc.gov.au/publications/online-reviews-a-guide-for-business-review-platforms).

Just to make sure I don’t do something illegal! It all seems pretty straightforward.

I am not getting paid to do this review, but I am using affiliate links to websites which sell the Yepp Mini. If you purchase from these sites using my links, then I receive a small commission from the sale.

The Yepp Mini front baby seat costs $199. But you can usually get it cheaper (approx. $170 with free shipping) from 99 Bikes (click here) or Pushys (click here).

The seat is designed for a child 9 months to 3 years. However this depends on how big your baby is, and how well they can hold their head up and hold on. I think it is probably more suited to a child of a minimum of 1 year old, then they have the required head stability and grasp. I think the top end age would be a 2 year old. There is no way my just turned 3 year old would fit in there. So I think that age range is a bit ambitious.




It is really user friendly. It was easy to install and connect on the bike. We had to buy an adapter to mount it on a mountainbike. The head stem was not long enough to mount it using the adapter that came with it. The Yepp Mini Ahead Adapters are $29.99. You can buy them from 99 Bikes (click here) and Pushys (click here).

A 1-hour ride was no problem for our 1 year old. The straps are nice and wide for his shoulders and he seemed quite comfortable.

We will use the Yepp Mini for bike paths. We don’t intend on using it off road (even though we put it on a cross country mountain bike). Obviously you will have a different experience with the seat depending upon the bike you use it with.

Pros: It’s light but robust. It is easy to install and take off if needed (I could do it with one hand). It comes with keys to lock it to the bike for extra security. The shoulder straps are nice and wide. The baby has his or her own handles to hold onto.

Cons. Steering was an issue as the feet holders hit the side of the frame when at the smallest foot holder setting. This limited the range of steering. There was an extra cost for the Ahead Adapter to fit onto our mountain bike. When mounted, I had very little room for my head on top of baby’s helmet. Taller riders did not have this problem.

In my experience the Yepp Mini is a really cool little seat. It’s durable and funky.

Check out my video review for some footage of the seat in action.






This post contains affiliate links.

Tags: Riding with kids, Yepp mini, family ride, Baby bike seat

Baby Z is now 11 months old and is big enough to come out with us on bike rides. Nothing too serious, just bike paths.

He sits in the Mini Yepp front baby bike seat (which you can buy from 99 Bikes (click here) or Pushys (click here)) on one of our ‘spare’ bikes. It’s RRP is $199 (AU), but the bike shops usually have good sales and you can get them for about $170 with free shipping from both online stores. Both these links are affiliate links, so if you click on the links and buy from there, then I get a small commission.

I will be doing a review of the Yepp Mini baby bike seat in a future blog.

It was so lovely to go out with the whole family. The bigger kids were excited to see Baby Z in the bike seat smiling away. It was a fair effort to get everyone organised and sorted with helmets, bikes and shoes. But worth it to see their smiling faces.




This post contains affiliate links.

Tags: Baby bike seat, family ride, Riding with kids, Yepp mini

Kona 24 Hour MTB Race - Hidden Vale

AKA camping with kids and chocolate…and 14 weeks pregnant.

We wanted to race the 4hr event in a duo, however the only option was to race together (keeping within 100 m or so of each other at all times). This format wasn’t going to work for us, because we had the two kids to look after. So we entered into the 24 hour.

We arrived to Hidden Vale on Good Friday and pitched the tent, shelter, set up BBQ, beds etc etc etc… We had intentions of riding the track in the afternoon, but by the time we had set up our campsite, it was getting time to feed the hungry kids and then settle in for the night.


Easter Saturday was race day. The day was full of activities before the main event started. Our kids woke us up at 4:30am and the day had begun.

Hidden Vale is the location of the Spicers Retreat (fancy accommodation and restaurant overlooking lovely rolling hills and countryside). The race HQ was a few kilometres away from the main Spicers area, but we were told we could go to the restaurant for hot coffee. So after having some breakfast we ducked down to get coffee and pretend that we could afford to stay and eat at the restaurant. The staff were lovely and we would love to go back to stay there one day.

Back to the campsite, and I geared up for the kids race. Felix was racing his first event! The course was part of the main race track. There was a huge turn out for the kids, and a big range of abilities and ages. Felix (3.5 years old) was on a balance bike, which had its own class. I rode with him so he would know where to go. The crowd was huge, and cheering all the kids on, it was a great atmosphere. The track was quite tricky for kids. It went down a steep rocky long section where lots of kids crashed. Then it followed some single track up over rocks and through sand, under a bridge and back up onto a fire road. We stopped a few times for a drink, and Felix seemed to be enjoying it. Towards the finish line the commentator cheered on all the kids and Felix and I went through the finish line. He came first in his class, and did the 1.7 km track in about 15 mins. We were so proud of him.



Photo: The kids prizes. Yum!



After the kids presentations, we had to quickly get ourselves ready for the start of the 24 hr. Tony was off first and he took off with the 100’s of other competitors. The 4 hr race started at the same time. It was midday and getting quite warm. Tony went out for 2 laps which took almost 2 hrs. The kids were entertained on the bouncy castle and other fun things.

We transitioned slowly after Tony finished his laps. We were just there to have fun and ride our bikes, and knew that we couldn’t be too competitive (we hadn’t been training for a 24 hour!). I went out for my laps and was enjoying just taking it easy. I had ridden some of the trails before (a long time ago for the Duathlon! See link here 2009) but I couldn’t really remember what was coming up next. The tracks were dry, rocky and loose. HEAPS OF FUN! There was a tricky rock drop section after the skills park where the ambulance people were stationed. I wasn’t keen to blindly ride off it, so I walked it and had a look at the obstacle. The next trails had flow and could easily catch you out if you weren’t paying attention. I loved the ‘Rock Bottom’ track. Lots of little drop offs and fast steep sections through a creek. It took me over an hour to do 1 lap, so I went out for another half lap and then headed back to camp to get dinner and the kids sorted.


I would have loved to have kept riding, but there were mouths to feed. By this stage the kids were feral. Miss 20 months hadn’t had a day sleep and was inconsolable. Felix was hypo and exhausted from riding and playing in the bouncy castle all day. It took 2 hours to wind him down to get him to sleep. By this stage we were exhausted too, and decided not to do any night laps. Slack maybe, but we were enjoying the peace and quiet and chocolate at the campsite.

Morning time and it was Easter Sunday. We had chocolate eggs and the kids were hypo by 7am. Time to do some more riding!

We did a few more laps each and watched the crazy 24 hour racers come in from riding all day and all night. They are machines.

We had fun, came in 3rd place in the mixed team. Took a while to pack up the camp and we have decided that 2 nights camping is not really worth the massive effort it takes to pack up the car, kids, bikes etc. It needs to be longer than 2 nights.

It was great to be out riding.!

Tags: 24 hour racing, Pregnant mountainbiker, Riding while pregnant, Riding with kids

So I got out on the XC bike on the weekend.

Yay! Besides a bit of soreness in all kinds of places, it felt fantastic. Its been 6 weeks after the birth, and about 17 weeks since my last ride.

Now thats a long time! I didn’t go too far. Not because I was worried I couldn’t make it home. I was more worried about my two boys (one big one and one little one) I had left at home without any food supply for the little one.

So it was a quick squirt around our local forest for 1 hr, and about 13km. It was so nice to feel the wind in my hair and sunshine in my face. I didnt care that i was maxing out my heart rate at 190 bpm on one of the simplest hills. It just felt fantastic. Fresh air and I was alone on the bike for the first time in almost a year! whoa.

I’m devising a strategy as to how I can get in a few decent rides a week. This is a great start. I’m feeling proud of myself that I felt well enough to go out for a ride, and also that It all came back to me - just like riding a bike really!
Monday, 30 August 2010

Tags: Post baby riding, Riding while breastfeeding, Riding with kids

Got out for an xc ride at bunya. Just another small loop for now of 13 kms. That's about all my body can handle at the moment.

The decents were fun and flowy. I wasn't too slow and could still keep it together. Climbs were tougher. I have lost a fair bit of leg strength, which will probably take a while to regain. Some days I manage to get some stretching in and a few weights. I hope to get into more of a routine soon, but first have to get Baby Felix into a routine of sleeping a bit longer!

Otherwise I end up carrying him all day long and can't do much. The 4x state series has not been announced yet. Not sure if there will be one. The first nationals is in November, so that's a few months away. Saturday, 4 September 2010

2010-09-04_FelixBanshee

Tags: Post baby riding, Riding while breastfeeding, Riding with kids

Training has changed completely to what I was doing before. I don’t get to commute to work anymore (40kms a day) and I dont have time to get out on the bike during the week.

So, Ive joined a ‘Baby Boot Camp’ group. There are 20 mums and babies in the group and we meet twice a week with personal trainer. There are no weights involved (except holding your baby!). This gives me the chance to get some running and sprints in. We do pushups, squats, step ups, bench holds etc.

The sessions are held in the parklands at New Farm and Roma St. Its different to any other PT sessions I have done. But at least if Felix is crying I dont feel guilty as other babies cry too. Its good to get out doing aerobic activity again.

Monday, 4 October 2010

Tags: Riding with kids, Post baby riding

Looking for kiddie bike trailers to put little man in. This way I can still get out on the bike during the week and spin the legs over. I wont be able to do anything extreme, but it should be good leg strength training pulling an 11kg trailer and an 8kg baby behind me.

I have a helmet for him already, but its too big. So we need to wait until his head grows before he can go in the trailer.

Photo Below: Bike Trailer

Tags: Riding with kids