New Regime Part 1

Jeepers, where to begin. It's somewhat of a cliche to say, but over the last five months I have gained a newfound appreciation of the hard work that goes into running a household. I bow before Jacq's endless patience for all the thankless labours she has endured keeping My Three Sons and I housed and fed for all these years, and hope I can do half as good a job as she has as she takes our lives on an exciting new direction. Her nursing degree is going great and she is top of her class, making all the endless hours of study worthwhile and completely justifying our new roles. Good stuff, love!



As delightful as my new duties are, and despite my putative "retirement", I have to admit I have still been sporadically dabbling in the bike repair business. Some of this is work lined up from long before the decision to shut down, some of it is work for friends, and I am also still doing the occasional bit of work out of pure financial necessity...



In no particular chronological order here is what I've been doing over the last few months in between copious loads of washing and trips to the supermarket...

A new drivetrain and EBB creak removal on this lovely Niner Air 9.



Chris's cool old RIH road bike has gone through a few changes since I first saw it. I swapped out the moustache 'bars...



...and using these retro Dura-Ace brake levers...



...and a mint pair of Sakae road 'bars it ended up with a classic road bike set-up, more appropriate to the enthusiastic miles Chris has been getting in. Very nice.



Chris was kind enough to bring me in a few bottles of my favourite bicycle wax - I'm not sure where Chris is getting his stash from, but I'm glad he's hooked me up!



In return I was able to bestow upon him my own largesse in the form of this stylish winter jacket, which I'm sure he'll put to good use around the freezing mid-winter Makara loop...



Warren was getting sick of breaking spokes on his factory-built wheels, so he got me to build up a pair of Mavic Open Pro/Shimano Ultegra wheels. It's not for no reason the pros choose classic 3 cross shallow rim wheels for races like Paris-Roubaix, as the ride quality and durability of these under-rated wheels is hard to beat especially under bigger, more powerful riders.



While on the Open Pro tip, I have had these CD rims lying around for ages waiting for the right project and when the local Campagnolo wholesaler specialed some Mirage hubs I snapped them up, then feeling inspired by the Spring Classics I grabbed a bunch of Sapim Race spokes and knocked myself up a pair of "hoops" to answer the critics of my factory Campagnolo and Mavic wheels. It was always an irony that I was espousing the virtues of handbuilts yet riding around the last few years on off the shelf items, and I have to say I am really enjoying thrashing my new wheels around the increasingly rugged roads of Wellington.



My friend Col is about to start in the gruelling XPD adventure race in Cairns, Australia as part of Team Securify - his cool Santa Cruz Tallboy 29er needed a pre-race fettle before he left. 26lb as it is shown here.



This PedalForce needed a new set of Vision tri-bars and a bit of a tweak to reconfigure it for it's new owner's set-up.



Tim Wilding's Santa Cruz Blur needed a whole lotta love after it's Karapoti winning ride in the Akatarawa Ranges, but more about this great day another time...



In the course of a testing MTB Nationals season Revolution Bicycles star rider Alex Revell suffered the misfortune of tacoing the front wheel I built him early last year; despite being very cross at him I agreed to build the replacement. A NoTubes ZTR Crest rim on a Hope Pro2 hub created a strong but lightweight (780g) wheel. Beautiful.



Dave's stunning Pegoretti Marcelo Thelonius needed a couple of minor fettles post-build - any excuse to post another picture of this steel perfection.



I built an interesting wheel for one of the guys in the first picture in that last link - Richard is running this Alfine hub on his On One Inbred commuter rig. For geared bikes I love derailleurs way to much to be convinced by hub gears, but Richard rides a lot more than I do and he seems very pleased with the low maintenance and versatility this wheel gives him.



This old school Motorola "Eddy Merckx" is actually another one of the late and much missed Ross Bee's paintjobs on a Columbus MXL Bauer that used to be owned by the also sadly departed Sam Raphael. As a legendary hard man, training in all weather conditions, Sammy would be delighted to see the thrashing Wok has given his old bike. Sadly, the elements had finally taken their toll and rusted the b/b into the frame - nothing a spot of "Fabulous" PB Blaster and few well chosen blows of the old knockrometer couldn't sort - there isn't a hammer in my logo by accident!



I converted this Argon 18 from a TT/tri set-up back to road racing mode.



Before my self-imposed fork servicing ban I gave Steve's Fox Floats an Enduro Fork Wiper Seal conversion to forestall the destruction a previous pair had suddenly suffered.



Dave from Bike Fixation got me to build this Quintana Roo CD.



Nic's lovely Wylder Titanium needed new cables and a different Look fork fitted.



Rob dropped off this sweet custom Carrera...



...but not for me to work on - he rode it from his work so he could leave it with me and grab his new DeRosa King 3 that I had just completed. I'll expand on this build soon...



I'll finish this installment by showing a teaser for the job I'm doing at the moment - this custom Roberts is going to be a beauty when it's done...



Thanks very much for reading, Oli