Post-Tour blues

It seems to often happen after a trip away - I come back to the shop utterly underwhelmed with the prospect of being stuck on my own in the workshop doing the same things as usual, especially when the Jazz Apple girls are having what looks like a bit of a torrid time at the Mt Hood Classic, after a great start when Ali Shanks got second in the prologue behind Jo Kiesanowski (Tibco). I am wishing like anything I was there to help, or at least share the experience with them - I find it really hard to drift in and out of such a tight unit.

I haven't heard from Team Manager Chris Drake yet how the race unfolded for them, but the results certainly don't reflect what this impressive Team is capable of. Great to see my friend Jo Kiesanowski doing so well there though - this stands her in good stead for her tilt at the Olympic Road Race title. I'll let you know the inside goss on this race and the upcoming events when I hear it...

Jazz Apples Ruth Corset, Susy Pryde, Ali Shanks and Lauren Ellis prior to racing at Mt Hood



To compound my slightly glum outlook, I came down with a heinous cold/flu thing this week, which kept me out of the shop for three days - of course the weather was perfect the whole time I couldn't ride then crapped out the minute I could! This was put in perspective though by nasty injuries to a couple of good friends - poor John Randal had a crash on the road coming down from Hawkins Hill, which hurt his ribs and gave him a concussion. And my erstwhile associate Paul Larkin has injured his thumb so can't ride. Hopefully they'll bounce back real fast...

Anyway! Enough moping - let's look at bikes!

I built up this lovely Santa Cruz Superlight for a mate of my man Tim Wilding. While Tim was travelling back from XTerra Worlds in Hawaii last year, some careless baggage handling left Tim's original polished aluminium Superlight badly damaged. Insurance eventually paid for this new frame in blue, which I finished off using the wheels, XTR and Rebas off the munted frame, with a couple of new bits to round it all off...


Butch should get a big kick out of shralving this bad boy!



I had to do some old school cold-setting on the forks of this cool Bianchi Volpe cyclo-cross bike too - Nick had been riding some of the loonier trails on Mt Victoria when things got a bit out of hand and he had to bail, which sent his bike tumbling end over end down the hill and ended up badly bending the forks. I removed the forks (sorry, I forgot to take a pic of them bent...) and straightened them with the help of my old VAR fork alignment tool and some brute strength. They straightened up perfectly, but only time will tell if the damage was too severe for them to hold up to Nick's treatment. I think they will.

Post repair - Nick's very cool Bianchi Volpe



Last week I finally managed to get onto this old-fashioned Atlas. I couldn't do anything about the rust unfortunately, but regreased the hubs, headset and bottom bracket, trued the wheels and got the dynamo going, as well as undoing and regreasing every nut and bolt I could find to make sure it will run well for another 10 or 20 years...

Atlas



The last job this week was rebuilding this custom-painted Lynskey back up for a client of Dave at Bike Fixation. I originally built it up for Dave with Shimano Ultegra as a demo bike to show how incredible the custom paint options can be, but it's new owner specced a Campagnolo Chorus gruppo, to which Dave added Ritchey WCS stem and carbon seatpost, and Sampson Stratics carbon ergo-bars and an SLR saddle. The client provided the Fulcrum wheels.









I am off to this worthy event next Tuesday - Simon is nearly off on his adventure, so it would be cool to see as many of you there as possible showing him support in his fundraising efforts.

Hi folks,

As you might have read in the latest Spoke Magazine, Simon Kennett is about to head off to North America to compete in the Great Divide Race. Check out his blog:

greatdividekiwi

or a thread on Vorb:


Prior to his departure, I'm hosting a little shindig to send him off. It will be at Rongotai College's Library, on Tuesday 27 May from 7pm.

Simon will have his Great Divide Race rig on display, fully loaded up with the gear he'll be taking. He'll give us a little talk about the what, the how, and most importantly the why, and will tell us a little about the charity which he's supporting Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières

There will be non-alcoholic drinks, and nibbles provided, and if we get bored of listening to Simon, there might be a chance to watch a bit of endurance racing on "the telly" ;)

There's no entry fee, but if you do come, I encourage you to drop a bill or two in Simon's hat. He's hoping to raise US$5,500 which is enough to stock a 10,000 person refugee camp with medical supplies for three months.

I hope to see you there, John Randal.

Lastly, it looks possible that I will be heading off to Canberra again in early July as mechanic for a vast NZ Team of thirty-four U15, 17 and 19 riders at the famous Kowalski Tour, which has set many of Australia and New Zealand's young aspiring roadies off to a great career start. If I am confirmed I will of course post further details as they come to hand...

Thanks for your time, Oli