Cheeky Transport

how bout that weather eh?

Whilst chucking a sicky at home I witnessed (on BOM and In Real Life) an awesome hailstorm. Must have gone for 15-20 minutes here in the city. I saw 6 people riding thru it! Little did they know, it would completely stop raining 10 minutes after the deluge.

and poor Shiftys’ first day on his brand new* Fixie

killin me

so i have taken to wearing a respro mask on my commute. even in centennial park there are some people who infuriate me by driving the dogs to the park for a walk or driving the 4wd for a jog or a ride even though they live around the corner.

now i can’t ride without my mask because the air is so disgusting, the militant look kind of appeals to me on one level but i feel as though i am alienating myself from my fellow citizen just because i don’t want breath disgusting fumes. good masks though, i am using a city and the techno is meant to have an even better filter so might upgrade when this filter runs out

on other exciting news, jackie chan rules, project a was the film with a the bicycle chase seen the other week. but i have been missing the jim jarmusch retrospective, that might be a bit too much tv anyway.

I have just come up with a brilliant idea

I went on a nice ride today the Massbug Sustainability ride (details soon). And I was thinking how much I love our customers. Not specifically the people on the ride. Don't be embarrassed. But I do some good thinking when I'm riding or after I've been riding.

So my brilliant idea is

to create a new blog covering Sydney bike culture!

Now, that is what Dave and I have been trying to do already, but there is so much cool stuff going on and so many cool people involved, that everyone should know about . And I reckon it could be a great resource and could help the cause of bike culture in Sydney. NB this will not be a Cheeky Transport blog per se. It would be a stand alone thing. I'd like to try and make it as positive as possible. Have a look at these sites for an idea of what I'm thinking
http://bicyclekitchen.blogspot.com/
http://bikeportland.org/ i love the byline "To inform and insipre"

SO, basically, I might set it up and ask people to be contributors of cool stuff (news, events, stories, thoughts, cries for help, whatever) whenever they feel like it

Anyone got any ideas ? We need a name, something sydney centric. Remember this is for Sydney bike culture. Don't be shy

latest news "velosydney" has been set up, but i may change the name if we come up with something else. Keep them names coming!

Damn that's a good idea!

bicycle related blogs and other stuff

my mac doesn't seem to be allow mt to hyperlink so forgive me for the rustic web addresses. that aeolian ride really captured my imagination. the riders look so cool together and on their own
www.cfsmtb.blogspot.com has some cool pictures and they also had some cool links to soem bike blogs that i thought some of you might be interested in. friday nights are the first time to take a breath and reflect on the past week. a full day of tafe on monday for me means adam is ready for some time off on tuesday and we are crazy busy building some sweet rohloff bikes and some touring surly long haul truckers with a nice kit for some lovely tasmanians as well as a full schedule of servicing.

http://links.tortoiseandharedesigns.com/ has the bicycle related blogs for you to check out.

one of our lovely customers wrote an article on blogging in the australian and adam was an interviewee for a small section on how blogging operates for small businesses. pretty comprehensive job by the looks. adam thinks he is a celebrity now.

how good is lone wold with cub on sbs thursday nights at 10.30pm, way past my normal bedtime of 9pm but there is something about a samurai walking around pushing his kid in a bodgy barrow necking all these dudes that does it for me. the gore is sweet.

so we missed the first bikelove because apparently it was on at 9.30am not 11am but maybe some of you heard it. next time hopefully we will have the correct time. jo is on to good thing there i reckon, lots of scope to do cool stuff, podcast a critical mass, whatever she wants.

so adam and i participated in the 10th polaris challenge down at delegate on the nsw/vic border. we were mechanics on friday night and saturday morning and we were actually rather busy which didn't make for much a restful weekend.

those hydraulic disc brakes seem to be a trap for young players, rotors rubbing, loose caliper bolts, levers being depressed during travel plus a few rack fittings and gear adjustments kept us busy till about 10.30 or 11 on friday night so it was a late dinner of soy sausages cooked on the trangea with some yulla dips and salad and then saturday morning these lovely but overly chirpy for the time of morning competitors woke us up about 6.30am and we worked on people's bikes until about 9.30 when we started to pack up all we needed for the two days.

we decided to go for the big points, 70 for getting to the top of mt delegate, well it just about wrecked even though it was a hell of a lot of fun, half an hour of off road climbing in the granny ring sorted me out and 40minutes of adam's super low rohloff gear well and truly sorted him out.
we decided to head to the pub and see how we felt. after a couple of cold middies and a very generous plate of hot chips a swimming holw and maybe a return trip via the coast seemed like a good way to spend the rest of the weekend. i was stuffed it was way hot and i didn't feel like wrecking myself any further.

it was my first polaris and it had a really nice atmosphere that more eseasoned mtb and polaris racers mentioned was typical of a polaris event. there were serious competitors but just a bit more chilled out. if i was fitter and maybe if it wasn't so far away i would be more inclined to go for longer not that that would be difficult. i think total distanc etravelled was about 35km.

sleep beckons

have a good weekend.

the best customers

i am not so down with blogs being purely a marketing exercise for businesses. i figure it is a forum for people to express stuff they like and dislike about things posted and the shop. Also, for us to inform you of cool stuff we have in the shop and let you know what we are up to.

I was talking to Adam the other day about just how damn cool our customers were and how much i loved my job. Having visited quite a few shops in portland and some in japan all the shops that appealed to me were similar to cheeky monkey transport.

Portland had four or five co-ops (owner operated, non-profit) which was cool, veloshop was a sweet shop in the middle of downtown with heaps of cool track stuff with a nice open workshop. River city cycles was completely the opposite, they had carbon/bamboo calfee bikes, seven plus pretty much every major brand. A real flash shop but didn't really do it for me. ALthough they had full wooden fenders which looked great.

Anyway, we have a real diverse range of customers down here and damn you make it a great place to work. It might be sappy and i might sound like a moron but i don't care, i appreciate having such a sweet job.
Thanks
david

young malcolm

what the……bikes are great. is that better? i am not getting 'all political'. it was a story and my opinion

saturday iregular part 1`

it might be nice to get back into the habit of a saturday morning blog entry. i am yet to retrieve my pictures from my trip overseas but i have been itching to write about it.

i journeyed to the state of oregon on the west coast of the states to a bike school that taught bicycle frame building. i did a brazing course and a couple of days of tig welding. the main teacher ron was sweet, there seems to be so much nonsense and hyperbole surrounding framebuilding but he just cut through it so i ended up feeling much more confident in some basics of frame material and design.

so the course stuff might be a bit boring for some of you. the time i spent after the course in portland and tokyo was great. portland has a fantastic network of cycle paths lobbied for hard by the bta. I stayed with Edwin who was a friend of a friend just above town in a place called multnomah. We spent a couple of days riding around portland checking out bikeshops and using the incredible, bike friendly, public transport system. Got lots of cool zines from reading frenzy there is an especially good one called resist which anyone can check out at the shop. north portland bikeworks also had some cool zines and they were wonderful in allowing me to send my frame there rather than paying US$84 to take on my flight to portland.

it is a little freaky to experience a little slice of america and realise that there are so many other slices out there, i guess that is no different to anywhere else but there are so many damn people there. the slice of edwin's life in portland i experienced i saw was mostly but not only young people trying to create a sense of community for themselves. most of the people doing the frame building course and some of the mechanic students were appalled at what their country was and how it was perceived around the world.

there was an abundance of vegetarians which was cool, there was a sweet wrap joint in ashland and an italian restaurant which had some mad vegan delights, this chickpea salad with eggplant, raisins warm crunchy bread, oh yeah. and! they had a vegan pizza which kicked ass, i couldn't even eat all of it at once and i am loath to leave food on the table.

portland had this place called voodoo donuts which had vegan donuts but they sucked. there was super cheap and delicious mexican in north portland which was sorely after riding around all day.

there were the coolest load carrying bikes i have seen in the flesh ridden by a couple of couriers, they were made by the Centre for Appropriate Transport . Hydraulic disc brake load carriers with a generous amount of space to carry your load.

i didn't make it to any builders in portland which was a bummer but i was a little worn out of bikes and it was nice just to hang out.

enjoy your weekend.
david

mags that I read

We're back. Not on holidays for another month like I initially accidently blogged. Didn't do a whole lot really. Had a great Australia day sleeping in and going to Emma and Evan's BBQ. Played soccer which was very cool. However, this running around caused me great pain the next day. Ow, my back, ah my hamstrings. Getting old. Well, I did turn 35 last week! Advanced yoga on friday night didn't help. Nor did the nice spin to La Perouse (BLOODY BEAUTIFUL OUT THERE) But the massage on saturday did. I live about 50m from a massage school in the city that does 1 hour massages for $25. They must have been short of bodies to practice on, because I had two people massaging me at once. On doing my neck and back, and another doing my legs. Heaven!

Friday, I caught up on some bicycle magazine reading. Sometimes I get this huge pile, and a lot of it is pretty hard going. There are not many good writers in the bike mag industry, but I feel i have to read them all, just to keep up to date.

But there are a few that I really enjoy
the Ride – USA East Coast Bike Culture. Sure seems to be a cool part of the world for biking
Dirtrag – another northeast mag. NIce homegrown feel for MTB
velovision – Lots of "alternative =" stuff like folders, recumbents, loadcarriers
Bicycling – Lots to hate about this mag. All the car ads, liberator ads, stupid training and eating tips and check out the ridiculous cover of the current issue.
But, there is always 1 GREAT article longer than 300 words, and lots of inspiration like BIkeTown.
cyclingplus – UK allrounder. Lots of cool touring and city stuff
AtoB – folding bike zine form the UK. The writing style makes me feel like I am sitting in big leather armchairs in some posh club talking with a bunch of gents from London. Very funny, honest info.
Australian Cyclist – Lots of positive australian stories, especially in the members only Push On section. And there's always some of our customers articles, which is cool.
Rivendell reader – classic stuff

link agro

what is wrong with the richard sachs link? or the columbia hotel link for that matter. i just finished my fork with newvex fork crown this afternoon, the only student to build a fork i might add. the bike looks sick, still needs a lot of finishing but that will have to wait.

i have two days of tig welding now but i am just about spent from building the frame and fork. tig welding is so tiring because i suck at it and so i have to concentrate so hard it wears me down. should be cool to get some practice though.

looking forward to checking portland out. i thought maybe i could check co-motion up in eugene. if anybody has any tips for places to check out in and around portland that would be sweet. at the moment i have to track down some vegan pancakes recommended by jos and suss out some bike shops.

any comments are welcome and when i post a link i will try to improve on my current standard.

later

david

duffy article

it's way past my bedtime and a few too many coopers stouts but i was requested to express an opinion and i know my duty damn it.
2ser kicks fbi, they are both good mind you but how good is the phantom dancer on a tuesday early arvo. that is real radio, that sounds like one of them bloody slogans, i apoligise if it is, anyway. michael duffy.
he has been previously mentioned on this blog i vaguely remember, he wrote something that got my goat.
his article on bikes amazed me, as a commuter i do not feel obliged to breath in the fumes of motor vehicles for the law, for respect for other cyclists for anyone.
This might just be me being extraordinarily self centred but like drinks in plastic bottles and state rail gluing the windows shut i can't freakin stand it. Is it selfish and counter productive to want to avoid the health risks of breathing exhaust fumes by breaking road rules and apparently infuriating drivers. MInd you if another cyclist runs a red i am more likely to stop at that red to pretend that there are some cyclists who obey the traffic rules, crazy eh and not always what happens.
What Duffy says indicates to me someone rather out of touch with any comprehension of how hopeful/necessary alternative transport to motor vehicles is.
I ride now with increased fear that people who read that article see me as even more of a pest. In my experience, the vast majority of car drivers are pretty good, the few who resent your presence are a serious threat to one's safety but so is driving a car, i think it is an inherently dangerous but ultimately very trusting thing to get on the road outside of a bus.
Duffy is a pretender who may argue rationally about some issues from his rather conservative perspective but he just seems way off on this one. As cyclists we have very little infrastructure in and around the city to keep us off the road completely if it all, the road is not much fun really, if we had separate cycle lanes imagine how relaxing riding to and from work and around would be.
The point of cyclists slowing motor traffic is rather frustrating as it doesn't seem very accurate, a city tax or substantial new car tax that could got to bicycle infrastructure would be sweet and a reduced city speed limit. When people drive aggressively around town they seem to be rushing to the next red light which is great if you want to be first at the red light but seems such an unhealthy and dangerous practice. Those who did drive in the city would get around faster due to less vehicles and bicycle messengers might have any easier time of it.
Anyway, happy and safe riding.
later
david
pics and links next post i promise