So I had planned to drop a load of dosh on the great 80’s Paino road bike I picked up off eBay last weekend. I spent the week concepting and building up a wishlist of great parts. The first part on order was a set of Velocity Deep V wheels in purple (gold spoke nipples of-course lol). I really wanted to offset the old skool frame with some super crazy in your face bling wheels, thing is, Velocity are out of purple rims and that disrupted the whole plan as it gave me time to think some more.

Grant at Mc Cyclery thought it would have been a shame to remove the vintage Campagnolo gear from the bike (I had removed the quick releases and was contemplating a new Sugino crankset). Same goes for the Campagnolo hubs, which he says are worth a pretty penny. After talking to Matt, who says I’m a lucky fucker to score such a lovely bike with great Australian history I re-thought all of the modifications that I was going to do and I’ve decided to just leave her be.

I put the drop bars back on as the risers, apart from being very “trendy” and fixie inspired, brought the bars too close to me in any case. I dropped in to Mc Cyclery again today today and bought some brand new cabling for both brakes and shifters. It’s so nice to not have to tune up the gears, friction shifting rocks out! Grant was out of toe clips so I ducked into Europa Cycles in Kingsford hoping to find some vintage gear.

Europa: I always dreamed of owning a Colnago.

Europa and John have been around forever. I bought my road bike from them when I was a kid, it was a Europa steel frame with friction shifting, lovely bike which I later destroyed (I ran over a cat!). They used to have a huge store on Anzac Parade, close to the big roundabout, they also had a store in Clovelly and on Clarence St. in the city across from Clarence Street Cyclery. I haunted the staff a lot, and even did hours at the Clovelly store in exchange for parts for a mountain bike build.

It’s just so awesome he’s still there, the now tiny “new” shop is a time warp, nothing has changed and John is in the store running it with his wife and his son. He’s an old man now, his hands are a bit shakey but he got a little excited when I said I had an old Paino bike I wanted some parts for. Specifically some white handlebar tape that refects the era, some chrome toe clips and white leather straps. John ducked into the store room out the back, and after what felt like an eternity, he came back out with some goodies for me.

Check out the goodies I bought: French AFA toe clips, Europa/Campagnolo white leather toe straps and vintage handlebar tape. Even the recipt John wrote for me is old skool cool!

– Edit: Love the toe clips and straps, they feel great. The bars I still have to get used to. On a bad note, the handlebar tape was nowhere near long enough for the whole drop bar (it could only do the ends to the brakes) That’s a massive shame. Looks like I’ll have to settle for something else.

A few months ago I decided to take off the ariel on the Honda Jazz in an effort to ban radio. Nova 96.9 in particular. The shit was killing me, the repetitive top 10 pop, the crap humour and the advertisements.

What an awesome move!

I’ve got a stack of CD’s in the car that I find myself screaming along to (good times). Fave CD’s over the past few months have been:

– Faith No More – the real thing
My first ever CD. Their cover of Sabbath’s War Pigs still gets me every time.

– Jeff Buckley – Grace
So real.

– Stone Temple Pilots – 12 Gracious Melodies
It’s one of those albums that you happily play start to end.

Well it was bound to happen. 2 guys who run their own businesses = mid week bike rides. Zi and I hit Manly Dam AGAIN today!!!

This time I had to try a few things. One was the harder line up the 3 techy steps and 2 was the gnarly drop that I’ve seen someone do but have always gone around the easier way myself.

Zi going up Step 2.

So getting up step 2 is now as easy as piss for me, but step 3 is a little trickier as I lose all momentum before it. Last ride I saw an old dude go straight up the hardest part of step 3 and this time I had to give it a go, took me quite a few goes but I finally got there. I’m determinded to take this harder line every time from now on.

Here’s a small vert drop to steep roll (picture taken from the top) that I saw someone else do once. Zi’s bike in the picture is where the cliff drops off (he’s placed his bike there for a reason!). I’ve always gone around this part but this time I was all padded up and I had to try it.

Picture from the bottom looking up.

Funny thing is I did it once, Zi missed the shot. He was giggling and told me to do it again. He missed the shot the 2nd time too, and I missed the last rock and almost went over the bars. After missing the shot for the 2nd time Zi was now laughing out loud. He told me to do it again and we finally got the shot.

Saaaap! Building on the way back to work. Speaking of back to work, fuck I’ve got a lot of work to do, WTF am I blogging for?!

Snuck out after lunch yesterday to go for a ride with Zi. Zi’s already ridden Loftus on his brand new Giant Trance X so I thought I’d bring him to Manly Dam.

Weather was cool, we went a little late though (3pm) and we were caught in peak hour traffic on the way out. The ride was great though, Zi’s definitely got some natural skills on the bike, great considering he’s never owned a mountain bike before. His legs ‘turn to jelly’ as he puts it, pretty quickly. A few more rides will sort that out I’m sure.

Zi’s renting out a garage in his apartment and this was in there. Check the shifter! It’s awesome.

What a horse. Zi’s Trance X – it’s so massive.

Zi.

Fox 15 QR.

Sexy red spoke nipples.

Bath time.

I also rode the Paino last night, damn it’s a fast bike! I definitely feel a bit cramped up on it, mainly because the riser bars bring the cockpit a whole lot closer to me than the drop bars do. I’ll try putting the saddle a bit further back on the rails. Zi stole my Fizik Aliante gel saddle and gave me his Fizik Nisene one instead. It’s not as comfy as the Aliant XM was but it looks more like a race saddle so I’m happy with it for now (I’d like a white saddle!). I also put on a few weenie parts I had in my spares box, she’s now at 8.5kg’s!

She’s a fast bike. She’s ultra quiet and there’s zero rolling resistance. She pretty much makes the little hill I live on non-existant!

I spent a fair amount of time late yesterday afternoon and night tuning the Paino. The first thing I did was take off the drop bars and whack on some flat bars I had lying around. The flat bars cramped up the position quite a lot in comparisson to riding on drop bars (and holding on to the brake hooks). The flat bars are about 130mm closer to the saddle and my knees come pretty close to the bars when taking off from a standstill. Still… the bike is instantly more familiar and playful with the flat bars. They’re 580mm wide though and they looked stupid (my research tells me most people who use flat/rider bars on roadies cut them down to 500mm). I moved the grips in to where 500mm is and found it fine.

I then tried some riser bars (the damaged carbon ones off my Reign). I cut these down to 500mm and I’m liking them a lot more both in feel (and looks!). I also took the massive front chainring off as it was so damn huge it looked like a 3rd wheel. Having done that I also took off the front derailleur and shifter too. I also put the massive heavy retro plastic Selle saddle back on as it’s a lot comfier than the Selle SLR.

The bike’s in the 8kg’s now. Once the exchange rate goes up I’ll hopefully track down a few goodies. My wishlist goes something like this:

– Nitto annodised (green?) risers.
– Velocity Deep-V wheelset (something bright and in your face!).
– Saddle (thinking BMX saddle for something bright, not sure).
– Some whack track pedals with sexy toe clips and leather strappage.
– Paul love levers + sexy cables (I’m making do with only a front brake off my old Specialized Hardrock at the moment).

My new 80’s Frank Paino road bike.

I’d been eyeing off this road bike on eBay for a week now, the asking price was $600 (starting bid). A few hours before the auction ended I mailed the seller and offered $400, and explained that I was just after a junker to do the Sydney to Wollongong ride with. He suggested that I take a look at the bike in person which I did on Sunday.

Daryll was a nice guy, his house had a huge sold sign on it outside, he was basically having to move out because the new buyers are moving in to the house he’s been renting (with his wife and kids). He was moving, and a bit tight on cash, that was the only reason why he was selling the bike. He was more concerned about selling the bike to someone who was going to treasure it than the money and he liked the idea of me riding it to Wollongon (ie: actually using the bike). He also had another sprint bike (Daryll’s a sprint racer) and he was saying how the Paino was much better at cornering than his sprint bike (which was a bit of blang: carbon + aero wheelset etc).

I mentioned that there was a Jim Bundy bike going on eBay for $350 (like Frank Paino, also a very respected Australian frame builder from the 80’s) and Daryll mentioned that Jim Bundy actually wanted to buy his bike, inspected it in real life and said to eBay it for $900, which Daryll did a while ago but got no bites, thus he re-listed it at $600. I ended up walking out of there with the bike at $475 which is an absolute steal.

Now for a bit of history on the Paino:
– In the 80’s Frank Paino had a shop in Sydney (Miranda Cycles) and he built cutom road bike frames. Gary Sutton (who is currently the NSW Institute of Sport’s head cycling coach) won a world championship on a Paino in the early 80’s and that gave Frank Paino the right to use the world cup colours on his frames.

World Cup colours.

3TTT Tecno Tubo Torino stem.

3TTT Tecno Tubo Torino Olympic Competition bars.

The frame’s got some lovely details on it. The geometry is pretty aggressive for a bike from the 80’s.

The bike features a complete Campagnolo groupset. Headset, bottom bracket, everything.

Fantastic old skool friction shifters on the downtube. Funny how my old Europa road bike when I was 16 had the same gear (shifters don’t “click” into gear, you feel your way instead).

Campy baby.

Crankset.

Columbus tubing. When only the best will do.

She’s crafty!

The only non-original parts are the saddle (my own Selle, replacing a brick of a Selle Italia that came with the bike) and the wheelset. Daryll replaced the original wheelset as 27inch tyres were getting hard to find. He kept it in period though and got Cheeky Transport in Newtown to build up a classy Campagnolo 700c wheelset with Campagnolo hubs, Campagnolo Montreal rims and stainless steel spokes.

Seatpost has a fantastic tilt design.

She’s super light for a steely.

More pics here. I forgot to mention, when I checked my email this morning there was a mail from MWG who suggested I take a look at this bike. LOL! I took her for a ride today. Love the gear shifts, hate the narrow bars. I’m just more used to wide mountain bike bars but I’ll try my best to get used to riding road bikes again. Next update: Autosol and serious elbow grease!!!

Friday night Nanami organised a dinner at Wagaya. You have to book by SMS and you order through a touch screen at your booth. I’ve heard from a few mates that the food wasn’t crap, or great, but just good. What they didn’t mention though was how fun the whole experience was. The place is LOUD and the food came out so damn fast and the screen makes you buy more food than you can eat and more booze than you should drink. It’s like going to Sushi Train for the very 1st time. I love it and will be back for more.

This shop sign in Chinatown always cracks me up.

Wagaya’s touch screen order system rocks out. Deadly for buying the booze.

Shaun, Nanami, Jamie and Richie.

Kellie and Christian.

Salmon skin + Lotus chips.

SATURDAY – Suga and I attended her cousin’s wedding. Weddings are strange events. I’ve been to more than a few now and each and every one of them has been a different experience. This one was perhaps one of the strangest ones I’ve ever been to (more traditional Chinese). The wedding started at 10am and went through to midnight (albeit with a break in between).

Why do all celebrants look the same?

Smack!

Nyaw.

Extra. Suga was thirsty.

Cool haircut around glasses arms.

Suga and I.

Hello Kitty?!

So my long time car buddy Zi finally decided to buy a bike. Yes buying a $2k bicycle initially seems like a ridiculous amount of cash, but it’s an investment! I hope he lives longer for it. It feels good to inspire people to get into riding, that means more riding buddies for me too which is a great thing. My recruitment skills are getting stronger!

Grant at MC Cycles looked after us and Zi walked out with a 2009 Trance X3. It’s got 5 inches of travel and some very sexy bits on it: Fox Float fork with the new 15mm axles and a Fox rear shock too, a Formula front hub, red spoke nipples, shadow SLX rear derailleur, Italian Fizik saddle and the exact same tyre set-up as my Reign (2.1 Nevegal Stick-e and DTC on the rear).

I missed the opportunity to get the new bike owner with bike photo but will take pics of Zi’s new beasty ASAP. In the meantime you can check the specs out here.

I’ve been doing a bit of research on road bikes (I’ve been here before, many times…) and I still can’t bring myself to buying a new racer. I’m not keen on the swoopy crazy hydroformed tubing that all the new race bikes feature. Sure I have NO doubt that these bikes would be super fast, light and rigid, but I’m still a massive fan of old school frames that are made of steel tubing. They’re just so much more elegant to me.

I started looking at flat bar road bikes today, and the Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra came up, it’s basically a mountain bike with roadbike wheels. The thought entertained me for a few hours but after checking out a whole lot of fixed gear bikes I’m 100% for a road bike, perhaps with a riser bar and gears. I’m definitely NOT going to go fixed gear and would prefer gears over a single speed, but I might dabble with some fixed gear/BMX culture and see what I come up with (hopefully something colourful as all my bikes are looking rather black!).

In case I fail to get a road bike for the Sydney to Wollongong ride I’ve decided to prepare the old single speed. I’m bidding on some slicks on eBay and I’ve whacked the Mary bars and Fizik saddle on for a bit of comfort. She’s looking lovely!

Mary’s back.

Vintage metal presta caps inspired by old man Willis.

Gold Alligator brake cable.

Jing wanted to do a lap of the Dam before work this morning so we met up at 8am for a quick burl. Clifton and Timmy (the lads?) came along too, it was Timmy’s 1st time at the Dam and he just mashed the last part (the most fun part and the kid led the way too!). Awesome considering he’s never ridden the Dam before.

I got up the techy rocky bit again, getting better at it every time. I had a go at Jing’s Cannondale which has no granny ring and a road cassette on the back and made it up too first go, in fact I thought it was easier to ride his Cannondale up it than my bike, not because of the gearing but more because the bike’s so damn light and rigid. I also finally got up a section just after the techy climb where a wooden path leads to some nasty rocks. I was pretty much smiling after that until the carpark.

Sealant was in the air as Clifton’s tubeless set-up gave way when he landed a bunny hop a little sideways.

Traffic on Military Road on the way back home.

How’s that for fuel efficiency?!

E10 FTMFW!

$60 for 600km’s.