The Sleeping Giant Awakes

 


I don't know what's happened to my blogging of late; perhaps it's the time factor required to write this drivel, perhaps it's motivation when there are so many other things to be done, perhaps the Lance Effect is still affecting me, or perhaps it's simply some characteristic sloth and indolence. Certainly the hundreds of photos I've accumulated in readiness for blogs that never got written have made approaching a new post somewhat daunting. Without wanting to dwell upon negatives, the winter hasn't been altogether kind to the Brooke-Whites, so perhaps that's it. Wait, who am I kidding? It's because it's so much easier just to post a days photos up on Facebook and be done with than to try and be some kind of writer. However, despite all these poor excuses, I do love the blog format, and I know not everyone is keen on the old FB, so here goes nothing...sorry if it's way too long, pardon me if at times it's scant of details, and apologies also for the unpracticed mistakes I'm sure I'm about to make!

I'll begin by sending some long overdue but very grateful props out to some of my supporters from far and wide who've taken the time to post me pictures of The Colours in exotic locales. Thanks to you all for representing, your support means so much to me.

Eric nearly Rules compliant in Colorado.

Nigel on the crater rim of 'Gli Astrone', a WWF Reserve not far from the centre of Napoli, Italia. Somewhere in the background is the island of Capri.

My mate Colin was the brains behind the Roadworks Trail Top - here he models his one in Queenstown.

Grant climbing the infamous Blue Mountains climb in a PNP race earlier in the year.

A new man in The Colours, Craig shows good form climbing Wainui Hill in another PNP race...

...while Bodhi captures Kerrin on the descent in the same race.

A couple of months back I had a visit from Shailer, the owner/operator along with his wife Lisa of the Haven MTB Park near Christchurch. We've known each other a long time online, so great to finally meet IRL.

Mark is one of my childhood friends and has flown  the flag ever since the first jerseys rolled off the production line. Recently he got me to build him this beautiful Singular Swift.

My bro Brent is an old Welli mate transplanted to Australia to show the convicts how real coffee is made.

Obviously not a jersey, but I figure we've had plenty of shots of my dear friend WO Larkin wearing the kit and not enough of his sweet Eddy Merckx.

My dear friend Alex Revell is on a Great Adventure racing cyclo-cross in Belgium, including the World Cups. He's now been picked up by a team and has support, but before that at Alex's request John Randal and I sent him a skinsuit to hopefully help him with laundry issues of consecutive days racing. Sadly never to be used in anger it's still great to see 'Snor' rocking the Black Ops.

My friends Paul and Amanda teaming up for an adventure race - note Paul's original Cima shorts!

My old mate Eoin in Singapore with his talented daughter Tahlay.

Leonard did a stomping time in the recent Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge!

As did John Randal and Simon Kennett on the Co-Motion Robusta Di2 tandem I built for them recently; in fact, they did such a stomping time they now hold the Taupo tandem record of 4.09.41! More on this interesting build another time...

A solo shot of John racing in his Black Ops kit in a Wainui PNP race that Bodhi and I spectated at.

As many of you will be aware, John was the driver behind the recent  runs of Roadworks kit and with the last lot he very kindly surprised me with a unique one-off pair of shorts with the same logo as the armwarmers. Old school cool.

At the same time John, Simon, Leonard and the others were racing around the Lake, a couple of  hundred  keen mountainbikers were racing the tough Huka XL, including my man Tim Wilding doing his first ride on his freshly Oli-built  2013 Santa Cruz Tallboy. Having had a lengthy break from training and just back from trekking in Nepal T-Rex wasn't expecting to win but he sure gave it a good nudge, finishing in a fine 13th place.
(Photo stolen from Kim Harwood)

Now, down to some of the work I've been doing. Obviously I'm not going to bore you with every single job I've done over the last five months, but here are some random samples. If you follow my Facebook page you will find most, if not all, of the work I've been doing and the rides I've managed to get out on.

Chris Tuckey builds these beautiful Caldera frames in Auckland. You should check out his website for better picture than I can apparently take, but I was delighted to be given the chance to complete the build on one for a Wellington client.

Cyclo-cross is so hot right now. My friend Nic had a misadventure with her CX rig and needed a new front wheel.

I built this lovely DeRosa King 3.

A nice pair of wheels.

Finally, the bulk of my magazines have a dry and safe home and the rest are in secure storage.

Facing a purple frame for the original purple man, Wheels. Not long after this was taken he had a nasty fall and broke his leg, so get well quick, bro.

If the flag is flying the doctor is in! Working from home can have its problems in terms of privacy, but so far the flag system seems to be working very well.

There's still a shit-ton of work to be done in our back yard, but nonetheless it sure is nice to be washing bikes in such verdant surroundings and with tui warbling and flying around.

Thanks to my old mate Pete for the loan of this great book (and the cool decals!) - it took me way too long to read it, but I would recommend this as a great tale of both wartime heroism and oldcore racing hardness. HTFU indeed...

David Benson builds beautiful frames for a very select few of his friends, and thanks to the generosity of a select few of my friends I am fortunate to soon be one of DB's select few (phew!). This is a picture of his "Evil Genius" which he loaned to me for a couple of weeks to test ride. More on this later too, but suffice it to say I absolutely freaking loved riding it and now can't wait for my own one to be built!

My tool board has turned out to be perfect for my current iteration - compact and purposeful with every vital tool close to hand, and others not far away in the drawers below...

Tool drawers.

My friend Rico Rogers has made the tough transition from being a successful Nationally ranked downhiller to being a top international road sprinter, winning many events on the UK, European and Asian Pro Continental circuits. I was stoked to be sent a couple of his Team jerseys, including the Chazal one of the French team in which he rode with storied MTBer and Olympian Kashi Leuchs, now head honcho of Yeti NZ. Along with these two cool jerseys Rico also donated a huge pile of kit to the PNP Club for handing out to juniors. Good man, Rico!

Bradley's cool Mike Varley-designed Masi was in for a bit of action.

Frank's wicked Giant  TCR Advanced SL got a nice race tune.

Chris King hubs are always such a pleasure to build up.

I've fettled quite a few of these sweet ENVE wheels now, and built a few pairs too. Very nice if you can get 'em.

Leonard stuck them on his slick looking BMC Teammachine SLR01 race weapon for doing the Five Passes Tour in early November.

One fine spring day I fitted some new niner carbon forks to John's Yeti Big Top - pimp. Great to have John there for company, and lovely to have my long-lost buddy Bill drop in for a visit!

My usual company is just the local wildlife...

I do get to work on some lovely fruit...

Speaking of which, these awesome wheels for Henry with a Powertap rear hub and a Chris King front and some H+Son polished shallow-v rims spun up beautifully.

Drunken Toy Repair Master. Thanks to Henry  (above) for the rum, and sorry for the grumping.

Nic's CX rig was suffering from poor rear braking, so I tweaked the cantis and sorted this rearmost cable routing with a few Nokon offcuts.

One balmy night I joined some friends (truly, at least that's what they say to my face) for a lovely evening at the opening of Geoffrey Notman's latest exhibition at the Cecil Veda Gallery in Miramar. I've often thought these premises would make a funky little bike shop...

Beautiful sunset from the Cecil Veda Gallery aspect.

A lovely chap I've never met before in Auckland out of the blue sent me a very kind note and this beautiful one-off Solo riding top, which I'll wear with pride at the very next opportunity. Thanks so much, Geoff!

A matter of a day or so after the jersey arrived I got an odd-shaped parcel from Neuburg in Germany containing another cool gift and another lovely note. This stem was lying around Harald's bike shop (the marvelous Steel Vintage Bikes) there but he thought on the strength of this blog that it would be better off in mine with me! I can only agree and say thanks!

In the further spirit of generosity I am continually humbled to be recipient of,  Hamish has given me extremely generous terms on this cool IndyFab Planet X cyclo-cross frameset that has replaced the old Cove Frankenbeast...

I wasted no time cleaning the frame up, adding my personal touches...

It turned out damn well, if I do say so myself. A couple of rides later and it's just so much better than the Cove!  More to come here, I'm sure.

Richard's rocking Time ready for a good time around the Lake after a hard years riding and racing, including a stint on the fearsome cobbles of Flanders and Roubaix.

A very cool mini-musette given to me by Simon Kennett.

And my new favourite tool, a custom Crombie tool made by Jason at Abbey Bike Works in the US. Now I never have to search for the correct freehub tool as it's two-in-one with a built in lever! Cheers, Jason!

And I'll finish off with a video I took on a recent Bays ride. You didn't really think I haven't done any rides in the last few months, did you? I'll expound on them next time...until then, thanks for reading. Ride on, Oli

A Fool and the Lance Armstrong Lie

How do I feel?

Foolish.

Sad.

Ashamed.

Let down.

Baffled.

Like everything I thought I knew about cycling has been turned inside-out.

Like I had a blind spot as big as the sun.

How did I idolise this fraud, this bully, this drug-enabling sociopathic creep?

How did I argue against all the evidence for so long?

These are questions I don't know if I will ever be able to answer to my own satisfaction, but in a post I did a couple of years back I argued strenuously that I believe in the presumption of innocence, and that until Lance Armstrong and his teammates were proven guilty I would continue to believe in them. The time has come to admit to myself (and anyone who may care what I think) that he and they have been proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

And that I was wrong. So very wrong.

It's surprisingly difficult to let go of twenty years of being a huge fan, but the terrible preponderance of awful evidence has made it a lot easier to do so. Suffice it to say, my LA posters and memorabilia have been taken down and I will be very careful about choosing my heroes in future.

I'd like to say that I'm sorry to any who I have offended with my foolishness, especially someone who probably doesn't give a shit what I think; Mike Anderson, a good man who was traduced and trampled by Armstrong's vindictive desire to crush anyone who spoke out against him, but who has risen above the slander and lies to make a good life bettering cycling right here in Wellington, and who didn't deserve being doubted by someone who clearly didn't know a thing about what he went through.

Luckily when I ride my bike all such regrets and concerns evaporate in the fresh breeze of a Wellington spring day, and I hardly think about drugs at all...

Thanks for reading, Oli