US giants Wekfest and The Chronicles in association with Black Label Invitational and Sydney Honda Club held a meet at Autoroe in Smithfield last weekend and it was MASSIVE! Was a hot day out, so many OTT cars on display I was totally overwhelmed!

Happy to reveal Curt’s Zen Garage EG Civic with ZEN livery at Honda Nationals 26! Curt had some cooling issues on the day sadly and blew a head gasket, but the car looks and sounds rad AF. A great first outing IMHO!

Also spot it (and Curt!) in this video on Australian Car Culture by NIGHTRIDE

And some race footage at Honda Nats.

Was a wet one, but the troops still came out to meet and greet. Some Sydney Honda Club members from interstate rocked up too! So good to meet some new blood!

Full Photo Feature on ZEN Blog: https://www.zengarage.com.au/jdmst-eomm-4-autoroe/

Took a while for some of the NOS stuff to come in from eBay (namely the SDG I-Beam seatpost and Profile stem (which matches the Hope chainring much better than the Hope stem I had on it before). The MRP chainguide/bashy setup took ages too. I got new tyres on and Jordan at CCACHE bled the brakes for me and the beast is now good to go!

SPECS: 2008 Iron Horse Sunday – Size L

Shock: FOX DHX 5.0
Fork: BoXXer World Cup 27.5
Headset: Cane Creek
Stem: Profile Racing HELM
Handlebars: Amflow 760mm 20mm rise
Grips: OneUp Thick
Brakes: SRAM Code Stealth Silver
Brake Rotors: Galfer Wave 203mm
Shifter: SRAM GX DH
Rear Derailleur: SRAM GX DH
Chainguide: MRP G5 SL
Cranks: SRAM X0 carbon GXP 165mm
Crank Adapter: Stone 3 bolt to 104bcd
Chainring: Hope DH 34T 104bcd
BB: SRAM GXP 83mm
Chain: SRAM PC1130
Cassette: SRAM DH 7-Speed 11-25T
Pedals: HT Components ME03
Wheelset: SUN S-Type
Front Tyre: Maxxis Minion DHF EXO ST 2.5″
Rear Tyre: Maxxis Minion DHR II TR EXO DC 2.4″
Tubes: Maxxis Freeride 26 X 2.20/2.50 Presta 48mm
Saddle: SDG I-FLY I-BEAM
Seatpost: SDG I-Beam 30.0mm
Seatpoost Clamp: Reverse Components QR

In 2021 I had a bunch of my photos removed from the r/boudoir sub on reddit. I chose to fight back and you can read up on that here and here.

In retaliation I started my own Boudoir sub. It wasn’t going to be easy to get the community going (never is!) as the official r/boudoir sub had 10 years on us but I’m happy to say that we now have over 80,000 members and we’re officially the most active boudoir sub on reddit!

Visit: https://www.reddit.com/r/boudoir_community

Couple of eBay scores. The saddle on the right was shown at the SDG booth at Sea Otter in 2010. Allegedly it was a prototype I-Beam saddle designed especially for Sam Hill and team Monster Energy/Specialized.

Managed to track down a 30.0 I-Beam seatpost on eBay too. Should be here by end of the month.

What a rad day out on the SB66! I’ve had a LOT on lately. Car meets, World Time Attack Challenge and my cousin’s wedding. It’s all caught up to me and I’ve been down with a flu the past few days. Really wanted to get out on the trails yesterday but nose was running and I was still having the occasional coughing fit, but old mate Eugene insisted a ride would make me feel better, and right he was!

The Yeti felt WAY too soft in the carpark. Forgot to bring the shock pump, but once we were out on the trails the suspension felt unreal! Super plush but also super efficient. The front tyre at 17psi felt so good. Using up all the travel in the shock but not using all of it on the fork, that said it’s got way more small bump sensitivity than the Fox 36 on my Amflow (maybe because the Amflow for is e-MTB tuned? Or has too much grease in it? No idea).

Honestly the bike doesn’t ride like a 26″. It just rides like a modern trail bike. The faster I went down the chunder the better (unlike the Chisel which feels WAY sketchier down the chunky stuff). The extra travel over the Chisel is super confidence inspiring! It climbs up tech great too. Having much grippier tyres makes out of saddle pushes up tech a breeze (in comparison to riding the Chisel with XC tyres for the past few months). I’m wondering WTF am I going to do with the Chisel now as this bike is just so much more fun in every way.

Eugene and I swapped bikes towards the end of the ride. His Trance felt like a rigid MTB, and way too short too (super cramped). He loved the Yeti though! In his words he thought the steering felt sharp and the bike felt so modern, fast and light.

Bit annoyed I have to wear a hydration pack again, but apart from that it’s rad AF. Might let some air out of the forks so I can use up a bit more travel (which might explain why I was feeling the dampening from the front tyre so much). Saddle can come up a little bit more. The ZTTO cassette was OK, but thinking I might get a microspline freehub and run an XT cassette to make the most out of the groupset. Speaking of groupset; Di2 and the wireless dropper is overkill and totally unnecessary but overall I’m Super happy with the bike as is!

Tuned up and ready to go!

Found an 83mm SRAM X0 carbon crankset cheap on FB Marketplace. Ordered a new BB, but when the cranks arrived I realised they’re GXP so had to order a GXP BB.

Got the Hope 34T DH chainring on using a Stone 3-bolt to 104 BCD adapter from AliExpress. Was on the piss when I installed it as I’ve just realised I installed the chainring on upside down.

All good though as I want to replace the OneUp chain guide and bashy to a chain guide and bashy with a lower roller (for a more period correct vibe more than anything!).

I’ve zoomed in to a lot of Sunday pics to figure out how people have done their chainstay protection as the rear stay has 2 tabs for zip tying the rear derailleur cable directly to the chainstay (putting it in harms way). I ended up using a protective sleeve which is pretty much what Sam’s mechanic did to his 2008 bike.

Chainline is good, gears shift great! Just got to cut the brake cables + bleed.