Note the handlebar bag, lighting and hydration on a modern road bike. Check here and here for alternative views on the ideal bike for Audax style riding.

In the last few months I was frequently working to the wee hours trying to get frames done for bobo and in the process realised whilst the ecstatic joy of being in a workshop building a frame or doing a repair for someone was immense I probably should be spending time helping to raise my family. Finding a balance between the missus, the kids, a full time job and part time frame-building I think will be my lifelong challenge.

I have always felt a tension when I”m building frames between needing my head to be buried in framebuilding, creating solutions to welding or machining issues and servicing bobo’s customers and trying to give a much as I can to Cheeky which has allowed me the opportunity to build frames in the first place.

I love greeting customers, giving no nonsense advice to beginners as well as experienced cyclists and not necessarily forcing a sale, I think people appreciate it. We do have an incredible range of cool stuff though, Stein hypercrackers, skirt garters, Hebie chaingliders, Klean Kanteen, King Cage.

What has been particularly interesting as I spend more time back out the front of the shop is meeting cyclists we haven’t see before who I can only guess are returning or coming anew to cycling in Sydney. Whilst we love our solid core of customers the increase in people deciding they are prepared to give cycling a go and come looking for a bike or accessories to equip their new bike is substantial and a fairly recent phenomenon for us. Quite a few of our new customers experience the City of Sydney Cycling Confidence courses either by our recommendation or after they do the course and need to find a bicycle shop to help them. These cyclists speak glowingly of the course.

Repairing bicycles is a whole lot of fun (although I did get screwed by three consecutive mystery punctures by an unnamed brand of tube today, changed the brand of tube I was using, fixed the problem) and the beginning of Spring has seen many neglected bicycles dusted off and wheeled in to be freshened up and made a pleasure to ride again.

Social media in business looks like its set to be a constant wave of ways to remind customers about cool things to purchase or events coming up. I’m unsure about this whole virtual community thing, what do you actually belong to? A collection of people in front of their screens appreciating similar stuff…..Ecstasy of information overload I think. Speaking of which a customer once gave us a fantastic print of an iZombie, worth looking up to your left as you are walking into the shop to catch it.

Nick has grown into his role as head communicator, facilitating Brompton enquiries with true passion for and expertise of the product is a sight to behold and holding the business together the way he does I think he performs very well. He’ll probably edit my post because he’ll feel a little embarrassed about how I write, it certainly could do with a picture or two.

You might hear Classic FM in the shop a bit more. FBI and 2SER do a sterling job most of the time but we find Classic FM very relaxing and calming to our mood and keeps us in good spirits for our customers.

Well, this has taken me about two hours to write, I tried unsuccesfully to have a picture of a Breezer Villager and a raw lacquer Brompton in it but maybe Nick can work his magic.

Since my little girl was born, I’ve not had as much opportunity to get on my bikes in a way that used to be pretty ordinary for me, but I had a chance on Friday night. The family were settled in and I had a date with some top notch ramen and the flicks.

The inclement weather almost kept me at home, but I was admonished to “Man-up, ladybird, and put your poncho on”, which I duly did and cruised into town.

I’ve got to look into finding more stock of quality rain capes, cos teamed with my guards, Schmidt, Skully’s and PDW taillight, I was warm, dry and well illuminated all the way. (I didn’t learn my lesson though, and got caught cape-less on guard-less bike in a bucketing on Sunday evening – luckily I was able to seek shelter in The Concordia Club and get lubricated enough that I didn’t mind the rain on the way home).

Regardless of the weather, the incident that prompted this post was still to come. After a stellar bowl of noodles, I was caught short looking for a place to secure my bike outside the Hoyts on George St, and chose a dubious looking set of bannisters to lock up to. Just as I walked away, a security guard came barrelling up with the standard “Hey mate, you can’t lock your bike there!”, to which I replied, with just a touch of implied snarkiness, “Well where’s a good spot around here for me to leave it?”.

I was ready for a casual dismissal of my problem, so when the reply was “Well, if you’re here to see a movie, I guess I could chuck it in the loading dock for you”, I was totally floored. I followed the guard down some flights of stairs and through a fire exit, and locked my bike to a exposed water pipe, with the reassurance that “It’ll be fine here, no-one ever comes down, give me a call when your movie finishes and I’ll make sure you can get out okay”.

Suffice it to say that Gumshara Ramen is the best in Sydney, you gotta go see Inception, and I had a great midnight ride home to Marrickville through rain-slick back streets and alleyways.

I wanted to write this for the blog, cos the debate about bike lanes and cycling in the city is never gonna make everyone happy. But when instead of telling you to “Fuck off buddy, I don’t care where you put your bike”, you get an almost valet-like service from a Hoyts security guard, it certainly makes me feel that Sydney is ever so slowly becoming a city that makes it easier to live the bike life.

I saw it at the film festival, and it’s bloody great.

Artscape: Salt

paddy and jo in helmet free engalaaaaaaaaaaand

Our friends paddy and jo with assorted assistants are providing some cycling skills courses. You can check their website or link below.

The City of Sydney has recently started a program for cyclists who want to gain confidence to ride in the City.

The City strongly supports cycling as a preferred sustainable method of transport and we feel that by providing these courses we will encourage more people to buy and use a bicycle and feel confident about riding in the City of Sydney.

Cycling in the City course

The Cycling in the City course is a free course available to any individual over 18 years old who is not a beginner.

The course teaches low risk and responsible riding and is designed for people who can already ride but want confidence to ride on city streets.

For more information go to:

http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/AboutSydney/ParkingAndTransport/Cycling/CyclingCourses.asp

so i haven’t been blogging much lately but don’t worry you are going to suffer me a bunch from now on. In the last 3 months my bike has not been my friend, i never thought an object of such beauty and a deliverer of such vast, joyful functionality could be such a treacherous fiend.

first a racing accident. a good one, severed tenders in my right hand, my pinky can barely scratch me ear it is such a waste of space. i could try and put that one away to being on the limit and being unfortunate on a tight corner in a race. the truth was i thought just because i had tubular tyres i could run obscene pressures. high pressure on rough road doesn’t work so well. i should’ve known but every last bit of forward momentum i could savor i was chasing.

then 10 weeks later, barely back on the back in earnest about 200 metres from home after a light ride, having a drink, hit a bump, next thing down on the ground groaning and moaning unable to breathe very well and realising that i couldn’t put weight on my right arm because i had a broken collarbone. even after my hand injury i loved riding my bike with an undeserved passion. maybe i should have been more humbled, i did try but i just couldn’t shake the urge to get back training again.

a week after i broke my collarbone i was due to go on a family holiday to france for three weeks to stay with paula’s parents in provence. awesome timing, mont ventoux beckoned but i was unable to oblige. i did drink a lot of great wine and had some lovely fresh produce. a good location to lick my wounds.

so a few pieces of advice: it is probably a good idea to wear gloves when you ride your bicycle (any protection helps), do not exceed 120psi in any type tyre when racing at heffron park or any other poorly surfaced cycling track and be very careful when riding no hands. if you break your collarbone get a few expert opinions on whether to operate or not. i reckon i should have been operated on but wasn’t and now have a significantly overlapped collarbone which will require messing with at some future date.

i am getting to get a kieren racing outfit just to commute with: cushioning and mad hand protection

We’re going to be closed this Saturday, February 28th. Adam and Jennifer are getting married, so we’re all off to the South Coast for the wedding.

In other news, we’ve got Ron D Swan panniers back in stock in a range of colours, plus the long awaited return of quick release wicker baskets, a bunch of new grips styles and colours and MKS Sylvan Touring pedals.

If you’ve made it this far, the new site is slowly coming into its final form – check out our awesome photo gallery – and if you incline your eyes to the right, you can keep up with out Twitter stream on the homepage.

First up, Murray Fredericks, as well as being an incredible photographic artist, is a customer and friend of the shop. For the past few years he’s been riding his Surly Pugsley out to Lake Eyre in South Australia for his ‘Salt’ series, and simultaneously filming a documentary about the project. The doco is due to premiere at the Adelaide film festival and the trailer has just been released:

Secondly, a  brief update on the workshop – Davey had an off racing at Heffron Park last week and has done himself a touch of damage. He’ll be recovering over the next few weeks and will be out of the workshop. We’ll soldier on in his absence, but we’ll probably wind up booked out in further in advance than we already are.

Farewell to Mick as well – he’s off with his be-stickered Rohloff / Schmidt / Crosscheck to conquer the US and Europe for a few months.

Finally, you’re invited to come and check out Bike Polo. My advice is that if you wanna play, bring an old beater MTB, rather than your carbon roadbike – things can get hairy:

Well done to all the organisers of the the bff related events as well, michele and the gang put a heap of work in to organise them all.

To all those who missed it here are some pics (care of sam)and you’ll just have to wait until next year. the bike blender cocktails get seriously strong when brian and marcelo get on the bar but it was an awesome afternoon with a very competitive game of soccer for some and a lot of lazing around for others. safe riding!

more great images at sydney cyclist. cool site to check out anyway.