Among the road bikes getting prepped for Wellington's 2 Day Tour and the MTBs getting ready for Karapoti, I have been fettling just as many bikes simply being ridden for fun in this beautiful summer Wellington is experiencing. I hope everyone is getting out for a blat at some point. I've been lucky enough to be able to get in the odd ride or two, including a wicked zero-wind, mucho-sun ride around the Bays last weekend with my good friend Paul on our fixies, followed by the mandatory Havana coffee at DeLuxe.
This is one fun project I have done already this year - a pair of Chris King hubs laced with DT Swiss Competition spokes and aluminium nipples to a pair of NoTubes ZTR355 rims for a sturdy set of trail wheels weighing a true 1590 grams for the pair! Very sweet wheels and I'm sure Rob will get many, many miles under him on them...
In some other news, as I alluded to in my most recent post, I found out this morning that I have been selected to be the Jazz Apples Team mechanic for the New Zealand Women's Tour this year. I was lucky enough to work with Jazz Apples Rider/Manager Susy Pryde and Director Chris Drake as XC mechanic at the 2006 Rotorua Mountainbike Worlds initially, which led to working together on the NZ Women's Road Team at the Geelong Tour and UCI World Cup round followed by the NZ Tour last year. This turned out to be Sarah Ulmer's last real competitive outing before her injury forced retirement and it was incredible to work with these guys (and all the rest of the women involved!), so I'm absolutely stoked to be working for Chris and Susy's own Team at this years Tour...
This means I will be away from the workshop between Friday the 22nd of February until Monday the 3rd of March. The Tour homepage is here, and will presumably be updated as the race approaches.
Lastly, I want to say a humungous HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to my youngest boy Bodhi who turned 5 on Monday, and his biggest bro Kester who turns 14 on Friday. These guys along with their brother Harry and my beautiful wife Jacq are what I'm all about...
Cheers for reading, Oli
