Monthly Archives: July 2009

Today I got some chopper forks on the bike. I think I’ve finished it!

View it in higher resolution here.

From left to right: George Hu (General manager Azzuri), Grant Kaplan (MC Cyclery), Brett Dutton, Me, Daniel Jungfleisch (Sales Manager Azzuri).

I forgot to mention, the other day I got to meet the guys behind upcoming bicycle manufacturer Azzurri. George Hu is the man behind Azzurri, he’d flown in from Taiwan and Brett Dutton (he’s one of Grant’s suppliers) hooked us up for lunch.

We talked about the local market, and how culturally different it was here than in Taiwan. The Azzurri web site and branding really fails to work for me. I can see what they’re trying to do and have a few ideas that George got excited about (he was a super excitable guy!). After much discussion it looks like I might get a chance to help them re-brand and re-launch, exciting times!

I also learnt that frames are not robot welded in Taiwan. In fact they’re hand welded. There are a LOT of people on internet forums out there saying robot welded this and that, goes to show you can’t believe everything you read out there, especially on forums.

Damn I love getting rad shit in the mail! Crazy stickers thanks to Ioannis at Speed Junkies.

Mondays are when MC Cyclery owner and friend Grant and I get together at a lovely little bookshop cafe at Bondi Beach to discuss world domination.

So I finally bit the bullet and got myself a new iPhone. I was a bit excited about it until I realised I’ve got no contacts on the new phone and there’s no way for me to port over the contacts from my old phone (the Nokia was a POS and the USB cable connection has never worked for me). That means I have to enter all my contacts in by hand (grrr).

Looking at all the numbers on my old phone brings up some memories. I’ve got a fair few numbers in there that I don’t ever, or have never called, some names don’t even ring a bell (I am getting old see?). One thing I’m pretty sure of. I won’t be entering in all these numbers, way too lazy for that!

I like to keep my phone in the same pocket as my keys so I’m off to buy a screen protector thingy for it (modding it already?!).

First a house rennovation update:

Clear roofing over the deck is on. Bird shit free for now. Also check the great timber which had been hidden behind paint all this time.

The main bathroom and wardrobe has been demolished. We’ve demolished the wall between the wardrobe and bathroom (so stupid putting a wardrobe next to the bathroom in any case as I had a bad mould issue). The bathroom is twice as big now.

New powdercoated aluminium windows to replace all windows on the house.

On Saturday Jamie and Richie got Suga and I tickets to the Sydney Good Food and Wine show.

Suga’s R32 in the carpark. It’s not so clear in this picture, but the R32’s excessive brake dust covers the wheels and is making them look dark brown instead of glossy black. We might have to look into some better brake pads soon.

Hey! Decent food at the Darling Harbour exhibition halls for a change!

Armed with a wine glass each, the wine testing was on and we were all spinning in no time.

Entry included an allocated seat for the Master Chef show, which to be quite honest, was heaps of fun. For these chefs (who are usually behind the scenes) to be so great in front of the camera and on a stage in front of 2000 people, that impressed me, they were hillarious.

Death Star on the harbour.

Despite there being a lot of great food and wine at the show the one thing that impressed Richie and I the most was the beer served up at the James Squire stall (try their Sundown Lager! It’s fruity goodness). So we headed to the James Squire bar/micro-brewery at King Street Wharf for more.

On Saturday night Jing called me up and said a ride was on Sunday morning. Pressure’s good. That’s what mates are for and I needed to work off the alcohol in any case so I set my alarm and got up early on Sunday morning for a ride at Appin.

Clifton at the start.

“Bei”Jing showing us all how to do the China squat right. As usual on rests the gay jokes started flowing.

What Jing would look like on the dancefloor at a rave?

Thanks to Timmy, Cliffy and Jing for waiting up for me at every opportunity. I just didn’t have any energy at all and was feeling the pain 10 miuntes into the ride. The boys pushed me to do a 2nd lap and whilst I went even slower than the first lap I’m glad I did it.

I rode clipped in for the first time ever on the Reign, the Shimano DX pedals are awesome, so easy to clip into and you can actually use them as a platform pedal not clipped in too.

I failed to clip out a few times though on techy stuff and went down 3 times. 2 times were slow falls uphill but one was a little nasty on the way down and I’ve got a bruised up knee but it’s nothing major so… all good! I’m pretty determined to stick with the DX pedals, at least for a while.

My mate Carby Tuckwell owns and runs Deus Ex Machina with Dare Jennings (ex Mambo). Carby worked in the same office as I did when I was on my internship, he was an inspiration back then and even more so now. Love the guy, love his work. Deus have just opened a new shop in Auckland and my god it’s amazing.

More pictures here.

I’d gotten up this morning feeling really bad about the state that my marine fish tank is in. I thought I’d get out to Botany Bay today to pick up some fresh sea water for my very neglected tank (since the rennovations began the tank has been topped up with tap water and dechloriniser instead of my filtered water system which hasn’t been working due to the rennovations).

I got up, checked the tides and they’re low at 10am today. I didn’t even make my morning coffee, instead I headed straight over to my place (I’m currently staying over at my mums due to the house rennobations) to grab the 3 20litre buckets I’ve got.

Mine all mine! Sideburn Magazine Issues #1 and #2.

Issues #1 and #2 going out to Valentino Rossi. A photo I leeched from Sideburn Magazine’s awesome blog.

Checking the mailbox I found a nice package from Gary at Sideburn Magazine. Issues #1 and #2. #1 is apparently out of stock now, one of the last issue going to one Valentino Rossi in Italy, so I’m super chuffed I got a copy too!

I went upstairs to grab some thongs and when I glanced over at the tank I found my butterfly fish dead :( They’re a very delicate fish and very fussy eaters (he primarily ate these nasty little stinging anenomes which spread like wildfire and are considered pests by many aquarium keepers).

RIP Copperband Butterfly

Of-course I feel guilty. I’m off now to grab some water whilst the tide’s low.

I thought I’d buy a computer so I could tell just how fast I’m going on the death trap bike. It’ll also help me to figure out whether or not the modifications I’m doing are imporoving performance. On flat stretches it’s happy sitting on 46.5km/hr and that’s still with the bedding in 16:1 fuel/oil mixture too.