Cheeky Transport

Some touring inspiration

Meg from Candy Cranks and Tarn from Primate Frames tour of Shikoku Island. Bloody brilliant photos to get you on the mood

I’ve (meg) uploaded a bunch of photos from the Shikoku island tour if you fancy seeing a few more. Check ‘em out here.

Injuries

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

Cycle sport stockholm

When I was recently jetsetting around the world with the lovely Jennifer and our Bromptons we came across the coolest bike shop in Sweden. It’s in the old town near the palace, really small with a bunch of beautiful schkeppshults, Bromptons and a Pedersen on the floor. All around the place was antique bits and bobs . And the best brooks display I’ve seen. I met Martin, who was tuning a 2 speed for the brompton worlds and he gave me a shop calendar with pics of old bikes on it . I think Martin came on the top 20.

Here is some inspiration for you

http://www.freewebs.com/jacandaaron/

From Jo (bikelove) and Paddy (bikelover) in London

The tour was awesome… England was really excited.  There was a bit of
uncertainty as the day approached but people turned out in the millions.  We
had an awesome spot to watch the prologue.  We were on the inside of the
track in a sort of horseshoe that the riders went around… so you could see
them doing a 360!  Would be nice to see them in France too but that might be
more than we can chew.  We also watched a few nano-seconds of stage 1.
kerbside viewing.  There was so much paraphenalia that followed them….
after the last coach went past a few ordinary cyclists jumped on their bikes
and followed them.  So Paddy and I did too and the crowds were cheering us
on as we sailed through Greenwich.  Then from the depths of the crowds an
American voice boomed ‘PATRICK JONES!’ that got people cheering even more.
It was pretty funny… until, we got stopped by the cops 2 miles down the
road!  Fame is short but very sweet.

Paddy finished teaching next tuesday then we are off to france on
Thursday… at last check.

Have finally just bought the radio equipment… heaps excited about that!

What’s Up? L’Eroica, Adam, John, SE Lagers.. That’s What.

Schmadzie has returned from his overseas jaunts, and it’s great to have him back. Come in and ask about his adventures in Japan, NYC, Guatemala, Amsterdam, Florence, Chianti or London.

John - Adam’s back, but John is off on travels – He’s taking his fixie and messenger bag across Europe with stops at the ECMC’s in Olso and 2007 CMWC’s in Dublin. He’s posting photos on his Flickr as he goes, or hit him up on the Facebook.

Brekkie Ride – The Fixie/Singlespeed Breakfast ride had a real nice roll over to Bradley’s Head and the Zoo on Saturday morning. Bank on it happening every Saturday unless it’s pelting down with rain. If you’re not equipped with an appropriate bike, read on..

SE Lager – We’re really impressed with the SE Lager single speeds that we mentioned back in April. There’s a few in the shop in a range of sizes. They’re pretty unbeatable for $700. Keep your eye out for a custom Cheeky Transport 3 speed version.

L’Eroica – I’m really keen to get a group together to head down to Beechworth in October for L’Eroica Downunder – “A rally for collectors of historic and classic racing bicycles”. The original L’Eroica is held each year in Tuscany. Drop us an email if you’re interested.

Cheers – Nick

Back from the USA

My trip to the States was fantastic, but it’s good to be back at work and no matter what Dave says, Barnetts has definitely made me more useful in the workshop.

There’s a big stack of photos on my Flickr – check em out. There’s all of them here, or just the bike related ones here..

In other Flickr news, I’ve started a Flickr group for Inner West bike culture stuff, so feel free to join and add your photos..

One of the best experiences I had in the US was rolling with a Midnight Ridazz in LA – 4 or 500 riders on everything from Huffys to 3Renshos doing loops around Hollywood dressed up like gangs out of The Warriors, yelling and screaming, and then a stack of beers and kick of a soccerball in a park at the end..

Stay tuned, cos I’ve got official sanction to get Midnight Ridazz happening in Sydney.

While I’m on the blog, it would be remiss not to acknowledge the monstrous achievement of Stuart O’Grady in the Paris Roubaix, L’Enfer Du Nord. John is upset that Tommy Boonen didn’t do better, but I think I’ll celebrate by kicking back and watching a movie. (P.S. The race is gonna be on SBS on the 29th at 11am – thanks Phil)

hola!

HI there everybody. I have travelled across siberia, had a weekend in amsterdam, and am getting fat on street food In Antigua GUatemala. Check out my photos as I go at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schmadzie/

ps. check out this cool blog that Phil from Spinopsys put me on to

http://www.noseyinnewtown.com/index.html

and I´ve been meaning to mention for a while a great program that I use to save a lot of time searching thru websites to see if they have been updated or not. It´s called bloglines and basically it lets you know when your favourite blogs have been updated.

If you want to subscribe our blog , the address to add is

http://bikesfortransportyeah.wordpress.com/

urban warrior colorado style

heyo..
hope you’re all well. there’s a real live local school district spelling bee on tv right now.. just like “spellbound”. it’s rivetting.

spent about 6 hours in the saddle yesterday, saw the local st patricks parade. there was item on the local tv news about peace protestors being arrested when they refused a request not to march.. heavy..

Dave in Colorado

Well,

I’m back from colorado springs where i attended the barnetts bicycle institute for a two week mechanics course, a two day suspension service and rebuild course, and with a bicycle sizing and positioning session thrown in for good measure. Colorado Springs was an odd place where the people seemed to be competing over who had the biggest pick-up truck or 4wd. Apparently it is somewhat of a bible belt and i did notice an appreciation of the crucifix in the most unlikely locations, like on the top of a mountain.

I had a cool Japanese room mate who just loved bikes so much he wanted to do a mechanics course, he was a sonographer by trade, he had a posse in denver where he had studied and one of his mates lent me a bike, so he is tops as far as i’m concerned. It was pretty cold in december so we would ride to class, ride home inthe dark, eat, study and watch television. We only had one day off during the 18 day period so we had a good dose of cabin fever by the end of our time at the red wing motel. This was exacerbated by the fact that one of the seventy -two television channels promised the lord of the rings triology over three consecutive nights but proceeded to show the first instalment repeatedly over the course of three evenings. We were not happy.

The mechanics course started with all the bearing adjustments, hubs, headsets and bottom brackets, then it took two days to be taught how to build wheels the barnetts way, which was great except i already had a technique which I thought was pretty good. The spoke calculation we were taught involved a lot more measuring and calculating which i enjoyed as relying on a scientific calculator or computer to spit out the measurements can feel like cheating. Speed is obviously an issue in a commercial setting but learning a new method was fun. Rim brakes and gears took a further couple of days with assessments of our absorption of the bearing modules interspersed throughout the following lessons. I found myself quite nervous during the assesments as i had travelled so far and paid so much money for this oppotunity and felt like i froze when the pressure was on. I ended up being satisfied with my results which was fortunate considering the above

The suspension course was great as this was an area i had little to no experience and was curious to see if i could apply myself to it and maybe bring some knowledge to cheeky in sydney. It demystified a whole heap of terms for me and i was exposed to a range of technologies that all the major brands employed. I just have to convince adam suspension is appropriate for the shop and justify the expense in tools. Following procedure seemed to be the priority for working on suspension as well as always testing oil viscosity in house and clearly keeping track of parts.

It was a long way to go to simply compare myself to one of the best standards of bicycle mechanics but i think it was worth it I realised i had been taught well but i learnt some really valuable lessons.

america’s retail bicycle industry appears beseiged by a litigous trend which no doubt australia will follow so being taught about specific torque settings for particular parts seemed pertinent. A mechanic’s failure to attach a part properly can be the downfall of someone on their bike, a job or even a business. Striking a balance between the fear of making mistake and being confident in your oen ability to perform at your highest level when working on someone’s bike is a work in progress.

Anyway, enough boring bike nerd crap. Colorado Springs is just down the mountain from South Park which has been renamed something corny which i can’t quite remember Happy town maybe. Apparently, the creators’ inspiration for some of the show came from living in this place which i think refelcts rather scarily on south park. Heaps of crap food joints and not much stimulation for young people left me feeling like Colo springs was a bit of a dive. Summer brings a massive influx of tourists which must be horrid so being there in winter was a mixed blessing.

Next up is Tafe for a Mech Engineer/welding course  and then UBI for a steel frame brazing course