It's been a combination of the upcoming Karapoti and Ironman races next weekend, National Champs this weekend, the usual wheels and random stuff I deal with, all combined with my being away the bulk of next week on the Women's Tour making me unable to spread work out a bit. My apologies to those of you who I had to refuse, but I'll make sure I catch up once the dust has settled...
Talking of dust, tonight was the National Championships for Dual Slalom and 4x held on the brand new track laid by Hadley from Crankworks, with help from the WCC and many, many volunteers. You'll have to go on Vorb to get the racing results, but Kester, Harry, Bodhi and I enjoyed an hour or so watching the carnage before racing home for tea. Although it was a bit of a shame that the timing of the events was delayed so much, the cool track, good friends to catch up with and the great racing meant it was a fantastic occasion. It was also great to see a big crowd turn up to spectate...
Sam Blenkinsop pinning it
Eddie Masters crosses the line
After yesterdays triumphant and glorious National Hillclimb Champs, I was stoked to realise that in my shop at one point was a current double National Champion (Tim Wilding - Xterra and Hillclimb Champ) and a reigning World Champion in Garry Humpherson, who is 70+ World Individual Pursuit Champion. Tim was converting his bike back to XC trim and Garry was picking up a cool wheel I built for him. Garry wanted a durable fixed/fixed clincher road wheel, so I got him a Surly track hub and built it into a Mavic CXP33 using my favourite DT Competition spokes - note the surreptitious World Championship sticker I fitted for him...
Here's a gratuitous shot of my beloved Park wheelbuilding stand, with a wheel about to be tensioned and trued.
I also had some fun a couple of weeks ago practicing the old Dark Art of cold-setting, which basically just means bending the hell out of old steel frame! My friend Josh Barley (Santa Cruz) is slowly putting together a retro road bike so he needed his lovely Tommaso's rear triangle spread from the old-school 126mm to the current 130mm. Now 4mm isn't a lot, but it has to be exactly 2mm per side and this frame was STIFF, so it took a lot of effort, combined with some finesse. It turned out perfectly...
Here are a few of the Ironman bikes I worked on over the last while...
Nick's beautiful Scott Plasma - check the bling FSA carbon 54t chainwheel I got in for him.
Here's another stunner - David's Cervelo P3. Note the SRM cranks and the new Zipp Sub9 Tubular Disc wheel...
Here is the Lynskey triathlon bike I built up a few months ago, now with it's new Topolino wheels, and the brake levers on the the right way around. D'oh!
I will be on Mt Victoria all day tomorrow feeding and cheering on Tim, John, Nic, Josh, Jonty and all the other riders in the National XC Champs, so I'd better shut up for now. Come up and check it out if you can - it's going to be a great day, and hopefully I'll have more to write about tomorrow night.
I'll close this very long post with a picture I took while out on a ride I took one afternoon to briefly escape the Groundhog Day hell that was my workshop these last few weeks.
We are in the middle of the best summer I can ever remember in my 40 years in Wellington, and sometimes it's just so important to take time to look around and appreciate the beauty of this gorgeous city we love so much...
Thanks for reading, Oli
