Category Archives: Bike

Giant Reign 1.

Today I gifted the Nepalese kid who does the bins and cleans the lifts and front foyer in my apartment my old Giant Reign 1.

He sees me nearly every single day with my bike and the other day he told me he’d like to buy a bike and his budget was $500, but he didn’t know what to look for.

I let him know that I’d look on FB Marketplace for him, but as I started looking I figured I’d just surprise him and give him my trusty Giant Reign 1.

He loves it! I’m excited!

Gina’s a little pocket rocket! She rides at least twice a week, and she gets faster every ride. Last ride she did 28km/hr average which is SO awesome!

It’s not all been smooth sailing though. Gina has never used the front derailleur, but I noticed that the front derailleur wasn’t shifting and it wasn’t showing up in the app either. I figured it’s because a wire has been disconnected from the battery so I took the seatpost out and damn, the battery and holder were wedged deep within the frame.

I didn’t have a J bend spoke to try to fish it out, or a coat hanger, so I took it back to the shop (Wooly’s Wheels) that Gina bought the bike from. I did let them know that I lowered the seat by 3mm, and did try to update the firmware but didn’t have the right cable to do it, so the sales guy tried to charge me $120 for the firmware update! :x

I 100% expected this kind of service from this kind of shop. As mentioned earlier, it’s a rich inner city Sydney suburb and I’m sure a LOT of their customers are clueless. Of-course I argued, and said surely this is all a warranty thing, to which he said “maybe, we’ll see”.

I left the bike there, and a few hours later Gina called me to tell me the bike was ready to be picked up so I went back in to get it, expecting not to pay a single dollar, but nope, there was a $215 AUD charge to replace a damaged Di2 cable and to cut the seatpost.

I was so beyond furious at this point that I didn’t feel like fighting. He said they updated the firmware under warranty, but they had to cut the seatpost down some more in order to accomodate the height we had the seatpost at (IE: they never cut the seatpost down enough originally as lowering it 3mm somehow caused the wire to get damaged). $50 for the wire apparently, and the rest in labour!

CCACHE would never have charged so much, and my thinking that the shop we bought this expensive bicycle from would take care of us was flawed.

The insane box my custom BRISK wheels came in.

Luxurious AF.

Skinny Minnie.

Berk Lupina Short in bare carbon.

EXS 34cm bars from Panda Podium.

Bang on!

So close to being part of the sub 5 club! Now where can I shave another gram?!

SPECS:

2018 Specialized S-WORKS Women’s (unisex) Tarmac SL6
Size 52 Satin Gloss Monocoat Black/Acid Purple/Rocket Red Fade

Frame: Hopp frame insert (2g)
Seatpost: Hylix 365mm (108g)
Saddle: Berk Lupina Short Carbon Matte (68g)
Stem: Extralite Hyperstem Stealth 100mm -12 degree (76g)
Computer Mount: Alpitude Stelvio (18g)
Headset Dust Cover Cap: Ceramicspeed (4g)
Spacer: Extralite 2.5mm (1g) + Extralite 15mm (2g)
Expander Plug: Extralite UltraStar 4 (5g)
Top Cap/Bolt: Extralite Ahead Top Cap (3g)
Bars: EXS R150 34cm (145g)
Bar Tape: Tesa 51608 (12g)
Bar Ends: Lucendi (1g)
Shifters/Brake Levers: SRAM Red eTap (267g)
Front Derailleur: SRAM Red eTap (164g)
Rear Derailleur: SRAM Red eTap (245g)
Cranks: SRAM Red 167.5 (363g)
Chainrings: Extralite Mid Compact Octaramp 50/34 (93g)
Brakes: Cane Creek eeBrakes for SL6 +adapter (176g)
Brake Cables: Jagwire + black teflon coated inners + hardware (76g)
Pedals: Xpedo Thrust SL Titanium (165g)
Bottle Cage: Celoco + Ti bolts (9g)
Wheelset: Brisk Ultralight custom clincher (877g)
Rim Tape: Schwalbe tubeless rim tape (13g)
Cassette: ZTTO SLR Gen3 11 Speed ​​11-28 (110g)
Cassette Lock Ring: Extralite ExtraBolt 3.6 (3g)
Chain: Dura-Ace/XTR 12-Speed (230g)
QR Skewers: Extralite (29g)
Tyres: Panaracer Agilest Light 25mm (335g)
Tubes: RideNow TPU Road Light (71g)

Weight: 5.00kg

Steel is real.

Is it wrong of me to love a big brand bike amongst so many hand made bikes? Simon Yates is 172cm tall, but chooses to ride a size 48 Cervelo S5 with a long stem, full stack of spacers and a 0 offset seatpost with his saddle pushed all the way forwards.

On paper, SCOPE wheels are the fastest on the market. The 3D printed hubs are insanely light!

Wooden wheels, gold leaf. Less is so much more. We got to meet and chat with the amazing Takashi Iijima from Yokohama Japan based Maruya Cycles.

This PROVA, painted by Steve from Velocraft was art.

Matching helmet? Yes please!

Down, but now out! SO hung over after yesterday’s amazing ZEN EOMM, but Gina got me out of bed and on the bike for a few laps at the park. “It’ll be good for you!”. We then dropped in to SPOKEN 2025 at Carriageworks.

Now with lighter 28C Pirelli tyres on there. I do think they roll a little slower than the Conti GP5000 TT and Aero 111 setup. They sure feel stickier, but I did a 3 lap blat around the park yesterday and my average speed was 30.7kms/hr which I’m happy with. Would the average speed be higher if I had the deeper Roval wheels on? Maybe?! Either way I’m really happy with how these CRW 4045’s make my bike feel so I’m sticking with them!

Custom Brisk wheelset is in!

Took a long time for these wheels to get to me, but god damn am I impressed. The wheels came in an insane hard flight box that far outweighs the wheelset weight! And to my (and Brisk’s) surprise these custom order wheels came it way lighter than expected.

They’re basically their tubular only Ultralight wheelset, but in a clincher version as I didn’t want to much about with tubulars.

Quite determined to now get the SL6 to sub 5kg. I just need some rim tape, then I’ll take more photos and share a ride report soon after.

Seraph Bikes Superlight X68.

I made this post this morning on the Chinertown forums in regards to counterfeit bikes:

Long time lurker, but long story short; my Dad was Chinese, and passed away when I was a teenager. In homage to him I’d really love to build a full Chinese build where every single component is not only made in China, but sold by Chinese brands. Up until now the groupset and the tyres were the only thing stopping me, but it’s looking like some performance tyres are now coming out of China, so I feel like my project can finally begin.

On the topic of replicas; I’ve been a graphic designer for most of my career. I put a LOT of blood, sweat and tears to get to the top of my game, and having individuals and companies rip off my work really pissed me off, so much so that I spent countless hours trying to take them down (IE: a lot of energy, time and stress fighting them). When I quit graphic design I started shooting photography full time, and again. I’ve had countless people rip off my photography with no credits, or worse yet taking credit (not to mention a lot of AI “artwork” using my photography as the source).

Morgan Freeman the actor said something interesting in an interview once, when asked about how do we end racism he simply stated that we stop talking about it. Whilst I’m aggressively against replicas and counterfeits I value discussion a lot.

Do I think any less of my friends who buy counterfeit goods? Maybe, but not enough to unfriend them! I live with it by telling myself it’s their problem, not mine. And as I’ve said elsewhere, am I at all tempted to buy a replica SL8 frame? Yes I am because I’m curious to see how it compares to my genuine SL8. I’ve never been one to read other people’s reviews, but instead would prefer to try things out myself. That said I struggle in this case with knowing the end result before even starting (IE: that the fake SL8 will be fine, but not as good as the real thing).

On a technical point; I do think I would be more impressed if genuine OEM SL8 parts fit the counterfeit frame. Why? Well it would show a greater level of care and craftmanship, and most of all it would allow me to put aftermarket SL8 components onto my replica frame, which is crazy important to me as I love tinkering with bikes and trying out new components as they come out.