Bye bye Talon.

We sold Christina’s Giant Talon on eBay this weekend. It went for $1025 which is great and it’ll help to fund her road bike (which is on order and will be here in Feb 09), and potentially also this bike. :)

Suga and I were invited to our next door neighbors party (3 birthdays under the one roof). I’m not usually a fan of dress up parties but this one was literally next door so Suga and I went to town with it!

We dropped into the Costume Shop on Cleveland Street (check the speed racer helmet!).

Pretty funny.

This is next door’s back yard from our lounge room.

All dressed up and ready to go lol.

This is a shot of our wild jungle of a yard from next door’s party. So strange to see our house from this perspective. I couldn’t stop staring at my own place for a while. Great people (some who haved lived on this street for over 20 years), great conversations, never ending champagne, great party!

It was raining Saturday morning, huge shame as the Deus Ex Machina bicycle swap meet was on. They started at 7AM, super early for a weekend but I love the spirit of it, getting in there before everybody else to pick up the best stuff is what great markets are all about. Shame then that Suga and I got there at 10.30 (lol), but even so we spotted some beautiful metallic blue alloy mudguards on the ground at one of the stalls, and upon closer inspection we just had to have them. The stall owner said they’re from the 70’s and let us have the set for a mere $20. They’re so pretty we’re going to build a ladies bike around them!

Obligatory name dropping: I ran into Tom who runs Hell on Wheels (be sure to check out the store, it’s killer) and Carby who runs Deus (I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before but I used to work along side Carby when I was a design junior, he’s just one of those guys that has “it” and has only gone from strength to strength).

Rained out, and we were late, but it was still such a cool place to be. I can confirm that there will be more future bike swap meets in 09!

Stalls were free. I have to admit I was tempted to set up and sell/swap the shitload of gear I’ve got lying around.

See those shiny blue things?

They’re mine!!!

Lovely aren’t they?

Can’t go wrong with baby blue + white.

Fang it!

God Speed.

So many nice bikes in such a small space.

Surfboard carrier (so cool).

For sale in Broadway.

Crumpler shopfront.

Suga and I dropped into the ZanziBar for a drink before heading across the road to the Bank Hotel for Thai. Both venues were haunts of mine in the early to mid 90’s but back then they were the seediest, grungiest rock’n’roll punk venues around. How things have changed! (PS: the Thai food was awesome despite being 3 times the price).

Valet bike parking!

What a sight.

Newtown RPRSNT!

Win a Surly!

Grant from MC Cyclery on the mic.

The Sydney Bicycle Film Festival started last week. Christina and I checked out the opening session on Friday night with a mate Ben who I hadn’t caught up with in 9 months (he’s a running and cycling nutter!). Grant from MC Cyclery was sponsoring the first session, and giving away a Surly bicycle to one lucky punter.

There were 3 films: Standing start was an arty (tried a bit too hard I thought) short film on Olympian and World Champion Track Sprinter Craig MacLean. Millar’s Tale was a short film on a Tour de France cyclist’s confession (and thoughts) on doping and the feature film was Road to Roubaix which was great (if a little long).

What was cooler was just being there, in Newtown and seeing how many people that live there ride bicycles as transport. BMX riders, fixies, commuters on junk bikes… ALL of them taking ownership of the road in peak hour traffic. The valet bicycle parking outside the Dendy was a nice touch too :)

I was a little hurt to find out the other day that my dream bike, the Yeti 575 (worth about $7500 with the pro-spec build) was made in Taiwan.

I know that 90% (if not more) of the world’s bicycles are made in Asia. Giant are the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer and their mega factories in Taiwan and China produces bikes for Specialized, Avanti, Trek, Scott USA and Iron Horse. I also found out after reading this article, that Italian dream road bike brands such as Colnago and Bianchi also make some of their frames in Asia.

I suppose when you’re paying a premium (in this case, the most you could possibly ever want to pay for a bicycle) you’d want to excpect the very best, with absolutely no compromise, but I consider that making something in Asia because it’s cheaper to make it there as a massive compromise, one which I find hard very hard to swallow.

I can’t be sure, but I doubt $20,000 Hermes handbags are made in Asia. If Hermes started making their goods in Asia, would they expect their brand to uphold their prices?

It’s all a bit shocking to me at the moment, shattered dreams and a hard hit of reality. Maybe I’ll end up making my own frames? (I need a new dream afterall).

Andy, Zi and I did loftus again this afternoon. The traffic was pretty shocking on the way there, must have been an accident somewhere. We started at about 6.30 I think, and it got dark just as we were finishing up. Great ride as always, we just push ourselves harder every single time we go out there which makes me super happy!

Zi pulling a face. We’re just getting silly now going up and down these rocks like they were gutters.

Eyes Wide Shut Andy was strong today.

Get in there! Andy’s poor Type R.

The Thule rack has been awesome but I’ve got to do something about my plates.

Home time always feels great after a good ride.

Greg Softley from Cyclomondo is the man when it comes to retro bicycle frame decals and I just received some COLUMBUS frame decals for my Paino frame. At the bottom of Greg’s instruction sheet is a big plug for Peter Fleming from Star Enamellers. I figured that these guys worked together!

My old Columbus decal.

My new ones (and Greg chucked in a couple of free Campagnolo decals in too!) which will go onto the frame once Peter gets it back to me with fresh paint!

What a trip. I was just at the mall doing errands (sending out JDMST posters, stickers, T’s… as usual) and I ran into an old Uni friend Anthony which I hadn’t seen since 1996, strange thing was the guy next to him was a mate of mine from High School who I hadn’t seen since 1992!!! Turns out both Anthony and James are long time friends that grew up together on the same street, and hadn’t seen each other in over 20 years, and had a chance running into with each other today. We sat down for a coffee, took us a while to get over how small the world is, and had a great catch-up. Anthony lives in Maroubra beach also, literally a cross street of my own street and James is moving back to Sydney from London and he’s staying at his brothers house which is 2 streets away from my street!!!

I’m not a religious person but it’s moments like these where you know you’re not in control of your own life!

Had a super active weekend this weekend. Definitely a far cry from this time last year’s drinking, smoking and general laziness.

On Saturday Suga and I spent about $1k on stuff for the house. Bed linen, bathroom towels, kitchen glassware, food shopping… it’s scary how it all adds up and it hurts so bad (yeah I was thinking fuck… I could get a nice bike for that kinda money!) but it’s a good thing… I think?!

Suga on the Reign.

On Sunday we headed over to Lady Carrington for a ride. Christina made it up the hill at the end this time and had a case of exercise induced nausea (ie: she really pushed herself!). She also had a good go on my Reign and loves how comfortable the dual suspension is, especially on the bumpier downhill bits (not that you’d technically call any of it bumpy, or dh at Lady).

I have to admit, despite wanting to hold on to the romance of the old school, I’ve truly become a fan of moedrn dual suspension bikes. It’s black and white, apples and oranges, between hardtails and dual suspension bikes. Riding her Talon hardtail was definitely bumpier, but also more fun in some ways as it’s more challenging than the Reign over rougher terrain (the Reign mows over anything where the Talon has trouble tracking over rougher stuff).

In the end of the day a dual suspension bike is a far better bike for beginners than a hardtail. Full stop. I can’t see how anyone could possibly argue that.

We also managed to sneak in a session at St. Michael’s driving range. I was in shit form but by the end of her bucket of balls Christina got the hang of it!

This weekend’s physical exertion has given sporty spice a sore ass and shoulders.

Jamie and Richie synchronised golf.

The MC Cyclery web site is now live! I’ve been adding content to it, and also setting up the forum (which will help to organise future group rides!). Exciting times!