After Quilt Club today, Sandra said, come to my car and check out her brand spanking new SubLime2 bike (not the photo below)... Sandra brought her new bike after last month's quilt club meeting, as her other bike she'd been riding had been stolen. Anyway I'd been chatting with Sandra and she was raving about how wonderful it was to ride (Sandra used to have a mountain-cross/hybrid, like me)... my SiL Leigh also has a SubLime1 (Sasha) which she too is very happy with. Then Sandra said the fatal words... "why don't you take my bike for a quick spin" - ahh you could tell the difference straight away... now I had been thinking of looking for a road bike and I've been having the delimma of whether to go full road bike, or intro-road bike with straight bars. Anyway I've had a number of bikes on the 'watchlist on Trademe' for the past few weeks... and I've decided that sometimes life is just meant to be. I got home from Quilt Club, said hi to hubby, and patted Diesel, then logged into Trademe, did another search to check if any new sublimes had been listed and damn what do you know this one (in the photo below) was due to close in 1 hour.
.... so I placed a bid, sat and waited, got out-bidded - quite a few times too I must add. I got a text from Sandra to say she'd had a magic ride around Eastbourne after Quilt Club (DH and I had done our 28km bike in the morning before the sun got hot!), I text Sandra back to say "OMG there's a sublime1 up for auction and its sitting at $215".... anyway long story short I WON THE AUCTION for a mere $315.00 - the new girl is 4 yrs old as been regularly serviced as the previous owners son works in a cycle shop, bike has new tyres (back tyre is one of those ones that are meant to be hard to puncture!) - only catch its in Blenheim so I need to arrange for it to be couriered to me... I can't wait....(and I'll get to ride her in the next RealWomen Duathlon 11 April in WLG). Now I've got two great bikes. I am going to keep 'Grace' my faithful girl who got me through my first year of duathlons, she is magic for the river trail rides, rimutuka incline track etc. The new girl (have to think of a name) will be purely for the road. When I was driving DD1 to her girlfriends tonight, I said to her, a-ha you can enter the RW Duathlon with me now that I've got two bikes, and she said - no way she ain't sitting on no bike... I said I'll work on you and you will definitely be entering with me next year!
The other bonus today from Quilt Club was, a lovely lady by the name of Doreen came up to me and said "aren't you doing a Dear Jane Quilt? How are you going" we chatted a bit and Doreen has started a DJ quilt too and we've decided that next month at club we'll show each other the blocks we have made and then each following month we are to bring the 'new' blocks we've made - eek! Though in saying that it will be good motivation to get working on this again...
Tomorrow DH and I are doing the BikeWise River Trail ride (part of February bike month) which is a 26km ride from Harcourt Park (north of Upper Hutt) to Hikoikoi Reserve (Petone), its a free event, with bands, sausage sizzle etc at the Reserve, then free bus ride (and the bikes are put into the truck following the bus) back to Harcourt Park. Also part of BikeWise month I've been recording my km's for February as part of the business challenge (IRD have entered) and out of all the staff in the building I work in only 5 are competing this year - though our other buildings in Wellington have been clocking up great kms!). After tomorrows ride my km's will total 151km for the month, not too bad considering its only been the weekends I been able to get out on the bike!
Anyway enough of my warbling, and I'll sign off here and get a bit of hand stitching done on a secret project...
Hugs to you all and hope you are having a wonderful weekend.
Best Novice Winner ... Dorothy 
The look of pure innocence... not what the cats would say though!
Licorice comes home in beautiful condition, is still very friendly, purrs like crazy, and will still give you cuddles, even staying the night occasionally, though more often than not now its just home for the refuel which is very sad as he's such a dear lovely boy - I only hope that he has befriended another house or keeps good shelter in the bush.
