The Hell of the North IV – NJC!

Posted on April 8, 2013 by njc

This weekend i found myself in the unprecedented situation of being in London on a weekend and having a new road bike… what else is a boy to do but go ride bikes in the sun. So on sunday morning Andy from TFG and myself met on the lofty heights (well for london anyway) of Highgate to crash the Rapha Hell of the North. This is the fourth year the event has been run but the first time i have taken part in this not so gruelling 100km…ish ride out of london and into the surrounding countryside. As the ride is a homage to the slightly more taxing Paris-Roubaix pro race the boys at Rapha had mapped out a course taking in 22 gravé sections mixed in with some gentle rolling country lanes. To add to the good vibes the sun provided the feed station at roughly half way had the little Rapha coffee cart dispensing the black gold and delicious snacks, for free, and concluded the ride with more freebies in the form of fries and a bottle of Leffe! So with slightly heavy legs we reclined in the chair deficient pub to watch Fabian Cancellara kill it on the cobbles and take the victory on the banking of the Roubaix velodrome. NJC

Adventure Mondays

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Mark Skulls

Teva and Justin took me out for some long overdue mountain biking. I got to ride tevas super deluxe carbon double banger while justin tested out his new specialised purchase.

Teva held it down old school on his fat chance and had no problem keeping up with us old fellas with new bikes.

beers went in the creek and we were off for a twisty dry 14km loop.

28012013545 bent tooth? 28012013546 some bush surgery on justins chainring
28012013549 chillin.

Thanks guys!

NEW 1×10 ROADIE

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Mark Skulls

Got this old GT EDGE

recently and decided to build it up fairly light with sram 10 speed mtb bits.

So I roughly stripped the frame and added some faux welding marks with a butane torch then just clearcoated it.
Its got KCNC cranks with some of that scandium through the middle and a scandium kcnc stem. 48t stronglight chainring and a sram 11 to 36 cassette.
Sram rival levers with one shifter removed (40 gram weight saving mod)
Sram XO ten speed rear mech.

I got deda bars and U.S.E. seatpost that I polished up and a Ti flight saddle.
Shimano mtb spds
Sram rival brakes
My wheels are PIMP! suzue road hubs laced to mavic open pros with radial and 4x sapin cxray spokes.
The fork is a 1″ full carbon easton ec90 that was kinda loud so I “realtree” camo duct taped it for that raw militant look.
It weighs 8.8kg at the mo.

I took it for its first big ride today, it was chilly …..

but with numb fingers and toes we managed a good 85km loop up through epping forest

out to the “secret” nuclear bunker

and back to good old hackney for some pizza and beer.

I’m really happy with the 1×10 set up, the spring on that xo mech is soo strong its never dropped off the front and I only just touched the range on that cassette this ride, I think I was in the smallest tooth twice and the second to biggest once. But london is fairly flat…..
And cold…..
Im gonna get another beer.

Epic bogz

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Justin Henehan

I took my new cyclocross bike out to the Waitakere Ranges for a onroad/offroad adventure mission on Friday. It’s an amazing ride through the twisting, bush lined roads. The climbs were gnarly, but the views were nice.

The view west to Huia.

It was hot on the road, so I chilled out for a while by this stream.

Eww, lycra stretchy pants.

Finally, I got to some gravel.

And then to the start of the trail. It was pretty mellow and fast to start with.

Quick bike check: USA made Cannondale CX9, Easton EC90X fork with C*NT, Campagnolo stuff, Fizicolonk seat. The trail here was really nice and fast, but that didn’t last.

Epic bogz! My strategy was to hit the mud holes as fast as I could and sort of hydroplane through. That worked sweet until my front wheel washed out in a 20m pit of green water and sludge. Those council quadbikes really fuck up the trails.

Trail snacks: Amaretti biscuits from Kohu Rd ice creamery.

After the mud, the trails got all downhill, flowy and fun. Perfect time to have mud disabled brakes.

Sweet cyclocrossy obstacle. I bunnyhopped it, honest.

Out of the forest.

Blasting through long grass.

Tasty brews. Tuatara APA rules.

The next day I went for a yacht race.

Rob Algie got us the loan of this recently restored 26′ Mullet Boat to race to the Riverhead Pub. You’ve got to love a race programme that includes hooning to a pub to get on the fizzy, yeasty malt drinks. Corona was built in 1936 by Charles Collings. This boat was unbeatable back in the day, but we came third. Not bad for an old girl. We got stuck on the mud banks in the Rangitopuni Creek a few times, but we managed to just wiggle our way off each time. This boat is old school — no winches and very few blocks. Everything takes the strength of at least two strapping lads to do. My arms and hands were wrecked the next day.

The sail back was a reach most of the way — an awesome point of sail for these boats with their huge grunty mainsails. This was the view from the stern. There were lots of malt drinks, wakas and a fine bottle of whisky (Thanks Monty)

Some of the crew L-R: Rob Algie, Zippy, Callum Dowie, Sam Montgomery, Saan Barratt. (Not pictured: Me, Brian Trubovich, Dave Nigh and Nick Atkinson).

Chain Gang Kids Adidas Originals Day-in-the-Life

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Justin Henehan

Here’s the latest instalment of the Adidas Originals series from SBC compadres the Chain Gang Kids. Head over to their website and show your support.

My commuter

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Justin Henehan

It’s only taken four months and two paint jobs, but I finally got my commuter bike going yesterday.
I picked up a mystery ‘Italian’ frame for a hundy off Tradme a while back. It’s still a mystery frame, but a nice one. All the lugs are Cinelli and it looks to be a mixture of Columbus SL and Genius tubing. ‘R.BOYD’ is stamped on the BB shell, but no one knows who that is.
I had Arcro Powdercoaters on the North Shore do an experimental paint job for me. It turned out nothing like what I asked for, but looks cool anyway. It’s a layer of candy blue clearcoat with silver sprayed on top at the powder stage and the two colours baked together. It’s as sparkly as a disco ball, weirdly textured and slightly translucent — you can see the brazing in places through the paint. Constructivist as.
I wound up getting that fork for it (get it), but I might chuck the original fork back on because it’s a bit steep and twitchy. The stem is a Kelly Bikes cromo one that I had painted to match the frame. The wheels are Chris King and Mavic OP. Alister Worrall sold me his old Sram Rival Wi-Fli climber kit for a bargain, so it’s got heaps of easy gears on the back (11-32! MEGA RANGE). The crankset is a LAF Italian set up from FRM. It’s all scandium and titanium — weight weeeeenies!
The bars are those comfy Humpbert jobs and the brake levers are some Dia Compe numbers with the built in finger grips that Tim gave me.
Completing it all is an old Controltech post (I’ve run on almost every bike I’ve owned in the last 6 years) and a nice new/old flite saddle.
Mods to come: original fork back in, Carradice Camper-C saddle bag, Soma front rack, Skulls Modz steering stabliser, suspension seatpost …

Thanks to Tim White, Teva (for the brakes) and Josca.

Cyclocross bike next.

Super Normal

Posted on August 22, 2012 by Mark Skulls

Super Normal is a small hippy noise festival in Ipsden Oxfordshire.
Watch the video from last year you’ll get the idea.

So me and Asha and Jamie and Bobby from Tokyofixed headed out there.
Me on the LHT, asha on her cannondale, jamie on his Kona and Bobby on his new Pugsley!

We rode about 90-100km? getting a bit lost and taking our time trying to stay off the main roads.

The pugsley was blowing minds the whole weekend. All I heard the whole way was chris king and “Oh my god look at those tyres”. (full bike check soon)

camping vibez

chillin vibes

food vibes

Coffee vibes

more chillin vibez.

So we saw some crazy bands and drank loads and ate great vegan food and free bread people and drank bloodymarys and lazed around and watched weird films and drank more and saw more crazy bands and drank espresso Martinis and it was awesome.

The guys headed off early to get the train back for work, but me and ash stayed till the end and had an extra day staying in a campsite in Henley before riding back to london.

Then………………………………… it was time to bowl.

homework

Posted on May 24, 2009 by admin

boy! waking up on sunday morning before 8 am is hard. but when it is to make history it deserve to wake up at 8.36 am. and i did participate in history.

we finally managed to ride the harbour bridge. i have been waiting for this for a whole hour.

jah man.

wazman got into the leading group by jumping over the fence followed by tim who threw his bike over. hamona disappeared in the crowd. brian was all over the show also disappeared and re-appeared in the late afternoon at the shop. and i was stuck with the back of the crowd walking and riding slow as krusty the clown.

it seemed like this sunday morning it all came together, everybody was happy and the temperature was perfect, sun was shining, girls were waiting to be picked up.